Nordic-Baltic Statement on the rights of indigenous peoples

United Nations General Assembly Third Committee
46th Session

The rights of indigenous peoples
Statement by the Nordic-Baltic countries

11 October 2021

Delivered by: Kathrine Kjær Sørensen, Policy Advisor

Mr President,

I have the honour to make this statement on behalf of the Nordic-Baltic countries: Norway, Finland, Iceland, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, and Sweden and my own country, Denmark together with Greenland.

We thank the special rapporteur José Francisco Calí Tzay for his report on the enjoyment of human rights by indigenous peoples living in urban areas.

Your report relates a fundamentally sad story of indigenous peoples being forced by either decree or circumstances to move from the geographical periphery to cities. Or indigenous peoples finding themselves living in cities established on their traditional lands. In either case urbanization mostly reinforces the marginalized situation of indigenous peoples, be it economically, socially, in terms of education and health and in almost any other aspect of their lives.

Indigenous peoples occupy or use up to 22 percent of the global land area, which is home to 80 percent of the world’s biodiversity. Indigenous peoples’ unique knowledge and contributions need to be taken into account. There are good examples of the important role they can play, especially within the work of implementing the UN Convention on Biological Diversity. More needs to be done. There are still examples were their actual as well as potential role in safeguarding territories from environmental degradation is being ignored and at its worst directly counteracted by Governments and companies in violation of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and international human rights law.

As you rightly point out, indigenous peoples’ land rights are threatened when states and third parties engage in resource extraction on their territories - in some cases with the participation of regional and international financial institutions. The lack of land titles and the criminalization of indigenous peoples engaged in peaceful protests to protect their lands have exacerbated the encroachment on indigenous traditional lands and territories.

Reality is that indigenous peoples are in the frontline of the triple planetary crisis, we are now witnessing. As you also rightly point out, globally, the adverse effects of climate change, including wildfires, deforestation, drought, rising sea levels, and other natural disasters, are exacerbating the migration and urbanization of indigenous peoples. The price for fighting against this trend is often high. Reprisals of governments are increasingly also targeting indigenous peoples. Tragically, many have had to pay with their lives.

We are deeply concerned that in many regions, human rights defenders are threatened, harassed and even killed, often with complete impunity. According to Global Witness, in 2020 the number of killings of environmental human rights defenders reached a record high of 227 of which more than one third belonged to indigenous peoples.

Our question to you is this: How can we ensure that indigenous human rights defenders do not experience reprisals, sanctions and even death for merely defending their human rights.

Thank you