Event: Panel 8: Indigenous Rights and Heritage Laws

Panelists: Teddy Baguilat (Indigenous Conserved Communities Areas); Awi Mona (National Taiwan University); Claire Charter (University of Auckland)
Moderator: Marcelle Burns (University of New England)

November 4, 2020, 6:00 PM (PDT) / November 5, 2020, 10:00 AM (TWN)


Webinar Series: Indigenous Peoples, Heritage and Landscape in the Asia Pacific: Knowledge Co-Production, Policy Change, and Empowerment

The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples was ratified in 2007. It was a product of a long and slow process that started in 1982 with the establishment of the UN Working Group on Indigenous Populations. A draft declaration was submitted in 1994, which became the basis for several state parties establishing statutes on the rights of Indigenous populations. In the Asia Pacific, countries that have a long history of colonialism adopted measures to provide some form of redress to the injustices received by Indigenous groups. These statutes were based on the 1994 draft declaration, which predated the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples as well as local regulations. In this panel, we discuss various issues that Indigenous groups have experienced since the ratification of Indigenous Peoples rights laws in different countries. We provide examples from Australia, New Zealand, Philippines, Taiwan, and Cambodia. The panel discusses how these laws have empowered Indigenous groups and how the lessons from the last 20 years could help strengthen these statutes.

For more information about the event and panelists, visit the event site.