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St. Thomas Law Review

First Page

425

Document Type

Article

Abstract

The destruction of indigenous societies represents a major threat to the contemporary world's rich inventory of cultures. Throughout the centuries, indigenous peoples have been forcibly removed from their lands, dispossessed of their natural resources, discriminated against or simply decimated.! Most of the world's estimated 300 million indigenous peoples are less well off than are members of the dominant societies. Many live in extreme poverty. Indigenous peoples wish to maintain their own unique cultures and ethnic identities and to control their traditional lands of occupation or at least some portions of them. Indigenous peoples need protected enclaves if they are to survive the homogenizing powers of modem states, with their compulsions toward integration and centralization. This article discusses the evolving right of self-determination of indigenous peoples. It also recommends and briefly outlines two types of constitutive processes that should sharply reduce the human rights violations experienced by indigenous peoples. These recommendations call for the creation, where feasible, of federations or cultural autonomous regional governments and a change in the Statute of the International Court of Justice so as to permit governments of federated units or autonomous regions to stand before the Court. The proposals are based, in significant part, on the humanistic assumption that indigenous peoples, like people everywhere, generally want to be able to make authoritative decisions over their own lives; enjoy some level of economic, physical and health security; have access to educational opportunities; and enjoy the respect of their fellows, the affection of their friends and families, and the spiritual benefits of their chosen religions. In order to achieve this set of humanistic values and human rights, indigenous peoples need to be able to exercise the right of self-determination. The author believes that just systems for distributing and earning these values promote human dignity and a more peaceful world order. These humanistic givens, with their emphasis on the universal needs of people, resonate with the international goals expressed in the Preamble to the U.N. Charter, which reaffirms faith in the fundamental human rights, dignity and worth of everyone, and calls on member states to employ the international machinery to promote the economic and social advancement of all people.

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