Dr. Cher Chen, Associate Professor with the School of Integrative Studies, was recently interviewed by the International Affairs Forum.
Dr. Chen is the founder of the Human Rights and Global Justice Initiative and a Senior Scholar for the Center for the Advancement of Well-Being as well as a Faculty Fellow with the Institute for a Sustainable Earth.
The interview examines Indigenous, Biocultural, and Women's Rights.
How effective have international laws been to protect the rights of indigenous people? What has been effective and the most challenging? What major areas of progress would you like to see? In general, the efficacy of international law has been largely criticized. This is because international law tends to be non-binding and “soft” (except international environmental law). For the most part, international law has not been effective in protecting indigenous rights. For a long time, indigenous peoples have considered the advancement of indigenous rights in international law as one of the main goals of the international indigenous movement, culminating in the adoption of the 2007 UNDRIP and 2016 American Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Both documents, however, are declarations and thus not legally binding, even though they signified the increasing attention to indigenous rights in international law and were the outcomes of the tremendous efforts of various actors at various levels. What looks promising is at the regional level, particularly at the Inter-American level. During the past two decades, the Inter-American Court on Human Rights and Inter-American Commission on Human Rights together have become a mechanism for indigenous peoples in the area to address the wrongs they have endured. For example, in 2021, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights affirmed indigenous peoples’ right to freedom of expression in Guatemala in the historical decision Maya Kaqchikel Indigenous Peoples of Sumpango v. Guatemala. In the future, to protect indigenous rights, first, at the international level, the International Labor Organization (ILO) Convention No. 169, a binding and arguably most operative international legislation on indigenous rights, should gather more ratification and be implemented more widely. Secondly, at the regional level, the Inter-American system, the European Court of Human Rights, and the rising African regional system should develop more innovative legal approaches to addressing the violations of indigenous rights.
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