The government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has moved to support bringing Canada’s laws into line with the terms of the U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, something predecessor administrations had resisted. The result is likely to involve major changes to the current rights and obligations of Canadians [Matt Pollard, Opinio Juris; earlier on the Declaration here and here, and related here, here and here]
Distantly related, perhaps: a symposium on “Global Justice for Indigenous Languages” [Columbia University Institute for the Study of Human Rights]
One Comment
Interesting – here’s a part of that UN Declaration:
Article 5
Indigenous peoples have the right to maintain and strengthen their distinct political, legal, economic, social and cultural institutions, while retaining their right to participate fully, if they so choose, in the political, economic, social and cultural life of the State.
Article 34
Indigenous peoples have the right to promote, develop and maintain their institutional structures and their distinctive customs, spirituality, traditions, procedures, practices and, in the cases where they exist, juridical systems or customs, in accordance with international human rights standards.
Wouldn’t “indigenous peoples” apply to Europeans in their home countries? They could use this to keep their communities separate from migrants. There are a lot of ways to twist things when you are granting rights to one group, that another group doesn’t have. In fact, rather than advancing human rights, that’s the very definition of “discrimination”.