Founded | 1974 in Standing Rock, South Dakota |
---|---|
Type | NGO with Consultative Status to the United Nations Economic and Social Council |
Location |
|
Services | Responding to threats and violations of Indigenous Peoples' rights |
Methods | Communications, Outreach, Networking, and Alliance building |
Executive Director | Andrea Carmen |
Website | www |
The International Indian Treaty Council (IITC) is an organization of Indigenous Peoples from North, Central, South America, the Caribbean and the Pacific working for the Sovereignty and Self-Determination of Indigenous Peoples and the recognition and protection of Indigenous Rights, Treaties, Traditional Cultures and Sacred Lands.
The IITC was formed at a gathering on the land of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, in South Dakota, June 8–16, 1974. This gathering would later be known as the First International Indian Treaty Conference. This gathering, and the IITC which resulted from it, was called for by the American Indian Movement, [1] and was attended by delegates from 97 Indian tribes and Nations from across North and South America.
IITC held the Second International Treaty Conference on the land of the Yanktonai Dakota people in Greenwood, South Dakota in June 16–20, 1976. [2]
In 1976, Aboriginal Australian activist and poet Lionel Fogarty addressed a meeting of the IITC. [3]
Organized by IITC in 1977, the International NGO Conference on Discrimination against Indigenous Populations in the Americas was held from September 20-23, 1977, in the Palais des Nations, Geneva, Switzerland. The conference is also referred to as the United Nations Conference on Indians in the Americas.
Since 1977, the IITC has been recognized by the United Nations as a category II Non-governmental Organization (NGO) with Consultative Status with the UN Economic and Social Council, making it the first indigenous NGO to gain such status.
The IITC's work includes supporting grassroots Indigenous struggles for human rights, self-determination and environmental justice through information dissemination, networking, coalition building, advocacy and technical assistance. The IITC aims to build, organize and facilitate the participation of Indigenous Peoples in local, regional, national and international events and gatherings addressing their concerns and survival. Working largely with international bodies, the IITC focuses on building Indigenous Peoples’ participation in key United Nations fora such as the Commission on Human Rights, the Working Group on Indigenous Populations, the Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities, the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity, UNESCO and the Commission on Sustainable Development. In recent years, IITC has also participated in the International Labour Organization, U.N. World Conferences, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and the World Archeological Congress to systematically address concerns vital to Indigenous Peoples.
The IITC cite their objectives as the following:
The IITC also disseminates information about opportunities for international activism and involvement in grassroots Indigenous communities and tribes, and educates and builds awareness about Indigenous struggles among non-Indigenous Peoples and organizations. With the aim of facilitating indigenous participation in struggles for indigenous justice at the U.N. level, the IITC published a guide outlining how to write a shadow report. [5]
The IITC was a major player in the process of drafting of the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (passed in 2007), and working towards its adoption by the United Nations. In 2004, during the 10th session of the Intersessional Working Group on the Draft Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, the IITC helped to coordinate and carry out a hunger strike, protesting for the rights of indigenous peoples threatened by loss of land, environmental racism, toxic dumping, globalization and theft of mineral and water rights.
Since the mid-1970s, IITC has organized the Indigenous Peoples' Sunrise Ceremony, an annual gathering held on the island of Alcatraz in San Francisco Bay, in the United States of America. Observed on the United States Thanksgiving holiday in November, this gathering and ceremony is held to honor the feast, held on Thanksgiving Day, on Alcatraz Island in 1969 during the Occupation of Alcatraz. [6]
In 1977, the IITC began compiling and publishing the bulletin Treaty Council News. This periodical was one of the original Indigenous news publications in the United States. The IITC continues the publication of this bulletin in electronic format, via the IITC website.
The International Indian Treaty Council was founded in 1974 by Bill Means (Oglala Lakota). People who have been involved with the IITC over time include Jimmie Durham, Paul Chaat Smith, Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, Bill Wahpepah (Sac & Fox), Hinewirangi Kohu Morgan, Bumpy Kanahele and Executive Director Andrea Carmen.
The Charter of the United Nations (UN) is the foundational treaty of the United Nations. It establishes the purposes, governing structure, and overall framework of the UN system, including its six principal organs: the Secretariat, the General Assembly, the Security Council, the Economic and Social Council, the International Court of Justice, and the Trusteeship Council.
The American Indian Movement (AIM) is an American Indian grassroots movement which was founded in Minneapolis, Minnesota in July 1968, initially centered in urban areas in order to address systemic issues of poverty, discrimination, and police brutality against American Indians. AIM soon widened its focus from urban issues to many Indigenous Tribal issues that American Indian groups have faced due to settler colonialism in the Americas. These issues have included treaty rights, high rates of unemployment, the lack of American Indian subjects in education, and the preservation of Indigenous cultures.
The consultative status is a phrase that has been in use since the establishment of the United Nations and is used within the UN community to refer to "Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in Consultative Status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council". Also some international organizations could grant Consultative Status to NGOs. Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) could grant Consultative Status in the form of "Researcher-in-residence programme" : accredited representatives of national and international NGOs are granted access to all records and to numerous topical compilations related to OSCE field activities.
Minority rights are the normal individual rights as applied to members of racial, ethnic, class, religious, linguistic or gender and sexual minorities, and also the collective rights accorded to any minority group.
The Fourth World Conference on Women: Action for Equality, Development and Peace was the name given for a conference convened by the United Nations during 4–15 September 1995 in Beijing, China.
The Red Power movement was a social movement which was led by Native American youth who demanded self-determination for Native Americans in the United States. Organizations that were part of the Red Power Movement include the American Indian Movement (AIM) and the National Indian Youth Council (NIYC). This movement advocated the belief that Native Americans should have the right to implement their own policies and programs along with the belief that Native Americans should maintain and control their own land and resources. The Red Power movement took a confrontational and civil disobedience approach in an attempt to incite changes in Native American affairs in the United States compared to using negotiations and settlements, which national Native American groups such as National Congress of American Indians had before. Red Power centered around mass action, militant action, and unified action.
The World Council of Indigenous Peoples (WCIP) was a formal international body dedicated to having concepts of aboriginal rights accepted on a worldwide scale. The WCIP had observer status in the United Nations, a secretariat based in Canada and represented over 60,000,000 Indigenous peoples worldwide.
Indigenous people under the nation-state have experienced exclusion and dispossession. With the rise in globalization, material advantages for indigenous populations have diminished. At times, national governments have negotiated natural resources without taking into account whether or not these resources exist on indigenous lands. In this sense for many indigenous populations, the effects of globalization mirror the effects of the conquest in the mid 16th century.
Indigenous intellectual property is a term used in national and international forums to describe intellectual property held to be collectively owned by various Indigenous peoples, and by extension, their legal rights to protect specific such property. This property includes cultural knowledge of their groups and many aspects of their cultural heritage and knowledge, including that held in oral history. In Australia, the term Indigenous cultural and intellectual property, abbreviated as ICIP, is commonly used.
Indigenous rights are those rights that exist in recognition of the specific condition of indigenous peoples. This includes not only the most basic human rights of physical survival and integrity, but also the rights over their land, language, religion, and other elements of cultural heritage that are a part of their existence and identity as a people. This can be used as an expression for advocacy of social organizations, or form a part of the national law in establishing the relation between a government and the right of self-determination among its indigenous people, or in international law as a protection against violation of indigenous rights by actions of governments or groups of private interests.
Pan-Indianism is a philosophical and political approach promoting unity and, to some extent, cultural homogenization, among different Indigenous groups in the Americas regardless of tribal distinctions and cultural differences.
Unthanksgiving Day, also known as The Indigenous Peoples Sunrise Ceremony, is an event held on Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Bay to honor the indigenous peoples of the Americas and promote their rights. It coincides with the National Day of Mourning held in Massachusetts. The Alcatraz ceremony has been held annually since 1975 to commemorate the protest event of 1969, where the Alcatraz-Red Power Movement (ARPM) occupied the island. It is organized by the International Indian Treaty Council and American Indian Contemporary Arts.
The first United Nations Conference on Indians in the Americas was held in Geneva in 1977.
The International Federation on Ageing is an international non-governmental organization founded in 1973 and based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada working in the field of ageing, older persons and ageing-related issues such as ageism, The intent of the organisation is for NGOs, the corporate sector, academia, government, and individuals working together to make, according to the IFA’s mission statement, a "change for older people throughout the world by stimulating, collecting, analyzing, and disseminating information on rights, policies and practices that improve the quality of life of people as they age". The IFA has General Consultative Status at the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC).
The Indigenous Environmental Network (IEN) is a coalition of indigenous, grassroots environmental justice activists, primarily based in the United States. Group members have represented Native American concerns at international events such as the United Nations Climate Change conferences in Copenhagen (2009) and Paris (2016). IEN organizes an annual conference to discuss proposed goals and projects for the coming year; each year the conference is held in a different indigenous nation. The network emphasizes environmental protection as a form of spiritual activism. IEN received attention in the news as a major organizer of the fight against the Keystone Pipeline and the Dakota Access Pipeline in the Dakota Access Pipeline protests.
Free, prior and informed consent (FPIC) is aimed to establish bottom-up participation and consultation of an indigenous population prior to the beginning of development on ancestral land or using resources in an indigenous population's territory. Indigenous people have a special connection to their land and resources and inhabit one fifth of the Earth's surface. Such areas are environmentally rich in both renewable and non-renewable resources. The collective ownership style of most Indigenous Peoples conflicts with the modern global market and its continuous need for resources and land. To protect Indigenous Peoples' rights, international human rights law has created processes and standards to safeguard their way of life and to encourage participation in the decision-making process. One such method is the process of FPIC. There is criticism that many international conventions and treaties require consultation, not consent, which is a much higher threshold. Without the requirement for consent, indigenous people cannot veto government projects and developments in their area that directly affect their lives and cultures. FPIC allows Indigenous Peoples to have the right to self-determination and self-governance in national and local government decision-making processes over projects that concern their lives and resources.
The International Indigenous Peoples Forum on Climate Change (IIFPCC) is the representative body of indigenous peoples participating in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
The Declaration on the Rights of Peasants is an UNGA resolution on human rights with "universal understanding", adopted by the United Nations in 2018. The resolution was passed by a vote of 121-8, with 54 members abstaining.
The United Confederation of Taíno People (UCTP) is a non-profit heritage organization, based in New York and Puerto Rico, dedicated to the self-determination of people of Taíno and Caribbean Indigenous descent, as well as the preservation and revival of Taíno culture, language and religion. The organization characterizes itself as an "Inter-Tribal authority", but it is not recognized as an Indian tribe by the United States federal government or by any other government. It is an associate member of the International Indian Treaty Council.
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