'Nuff said

(Taking context-optional note of thought-provoking quotes)

'The Court was explicit in explaining what is required to ensure indigenous and tribal peoples’ right to consultation. The Court stated that the obligation to consult is the responsibility of the state; therefore, planning and conducting the consultation process cannot be delegated to a private company or a third party. The Court also considered that the consultation process should entail a “genuine dialogue as part of a participatory process in order to reach an agreement,” and it should be conceived as “a true instrument of participation,” done in “good faith,” with “mutual trust” and with the goal of reaching a consensus.'

–  Lisl Brunner, a human rights specialist with the Office of the Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression, Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, and Karla Quintana, a human rights specialist with the Commission's Litigation Group, in an ASIL Insight entitled "The Duty to Consult in the Inter-American System: Legal Standards after Sarayaku." The co-authors set forth the reasoning in Caso del Pueblo Indígena Kichwa de Sarayaku v. Ecuador (June 27, 2012), in which the Inter-American Court of Human Rights held that the respondent state was liable for failing to discharge its duty to consult with the indigenous Sarayaku people in connection with an oil project, undertaken in 1996, that destroyed part of a rainforest in the people's traditional lands.
As Brunner (right) and Quintana (left) explain, although the decision arose within the inter-American human rights system, it is likely to have impact on actors brought before other regimes as well; for example, those that consider: the International Labour Organization Convention No. 169, titled the Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention; the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, and the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights.

Voting access & participation in Venezuela's indigenous & Afrodiasporic communities

(Part 3 of a 4-part series comparing voting in the United States and Venezuela, in light of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Part 1 is here; Part 2 is here; Part 4 is here.)

October 7, the general Election Day in Venezuela, falls on a Sunday. That day, in my capacity as an international election accompañamiento, or "accompaniment," I traveled to many sites in Venezuela. Specifically, I visited eleven precincts across the eastern state of Monagas, along with two domestic observers, a Swiss human rights advocate, a Brazilian professor of international law, and two journalists from Chile and Uruguay.
When we arrived at the remote indigenous Warao community of Mosú at 8:40 in the morning, we observed that 60% of the people in the community had already exercised their right to vote.

Our delegation spoke with Santo Garcia, the elected administrator of the indigenous school in the town of Mosú. Garcia stated:

'Every person who wants to exercise their vote has been able to do so…. As it says in the Constitution approved in 1999, every indigenous community needs to elect their representatives.'

No outsiders – other than the staff of Consejo Nacional Electoral, also known as the National Electoral Council or CNE, as well as officials, observers, and international accompaniers – were allowed to enter the community, under the local regulations regarding indigenous autonomy.
CNE is an independent, fourth branch of government. It derives from the power of the people as set forth in Articles 136 and 296 of the 1999 Venezuelan Constitution, and works affirmatively to create spaces for indigenous and afrodiasporic minority voters to exercise the franchise. (credit for photo by Uruguay Delegation, CNE Accompañamiento Internacional de las Elecciones del 7 de octubre, 2012, Comunidad Indigena Mosú, Caripito, Bolívar, Estado de Monagas, Venezuela)
Professor Esther G. Pineda (left), a sociologist at the Universidad Central de Venezuela, writes:

'In creating new electoral centers in remote communities that historically had been forgotten as afrodescendent and low-income communities, the initiatives of the Consejo Nacional Electoral (CNE) create a system that prioritizes security and confidence in the voters, as a massive investment in the education and formation of voters who respect the procedures to exercise the right to vote. This investment has clearly had a return, and a significant impact on reducing the numbers of abstentions and null votes. In a highly politicized and polarized society such as Venezuelan society, in which the population has become a part of the political process every day – this has become an evolving process in the participatory and active exercise of one’s citizenship.

(photo source)

'As a result, there has been a major consolidation of spaces for debate in a society in which diverse opinions and thoughts were formerly silenced; now afrodescendent men and women have the opportunity to express themselves and reflect on their own situation and experiences, specifically those which have resulted in the massive formulation of policy proposals and projects by and for diverse afrodescendent groups and communities.'

In my view, as an observer this autumn of both the U.S. and the Venezuelan elections, the clarity of the national standards, technical audits and accountability measures built into Venezuela’s electoral process stand in stark contrast to the lack of transparency and struggles with voter ID requirements and other forms of suppression in the United States.

Write On! GoJIL issue on indigenous peoples

(Write On! is an occasional item about notable calls for papers)

From IntLawGrrls reader Frederike Mielke, a member of the Editorial Board of GoJIL, the Goettingen Journal of International Law, a 5-year-old review edited by students at Germany's University of Goettingen, comes a call for papers.
Specifically, papers are being sought for a forthcoming number of the journal, which will focus on the law and politics of indigenous peoples in international law. Organizers write:

'Indigenous peoples received increasing public and scholarly attention over the last decades. It has been a unique journey from the colonial history to the beginning of their political presence in the United Nations since the 1970s to the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in 2007. The UN’s International Year for the World’s Indigenous Peoples in 1993 as well as the following decades of the world’s indigenous peoples from 1995 to 2004 and 2006 to 2015 prove the ongoing need to attend to indigenous peoples’ interests. Today, discourses of indigenous peoples rights and their claim for self-determination are found beyond International Human Rights law: topics such as intellectual property rights, control over the exploitation of natural resources, the protection of traditional knowledge and traditional cultural expressions are on the agenda. Underlying all is the constant debate about a definition and the implementation of indigenous peoples’ rights beyond the Americas, particularly in Asia and Africa. In order to shine a light on the legal and political problems indigenous peoples are facing, we call for authors to submit papers on the topic.'

Deadline for submissions is 1 March 2013. For more information, contact GoJIL editors at info@gojil.eu.

Welcoming Charlesworth, Chinkin & Wright

We at IntLawGrrls are delighted to welcome comments from Hilary Charlesworth, Christine Chinkin, and Shelley Wright.
Today the three offer comments to wrap up our month-long series reviewing the impact of their ground-breaking article, "Feminist Approaches to International Law," 85 American Journal of International Law 613-645 (October 1991).

Hilary Charlesworth

► We've already had the pleasure of introducing Australian National University Law Professor Hilary Charlesworth as an IntLawGrrls contributor, and have welcomed numerous posts relating to her and her work.
► Christine Chinkin is Professor of International Law at the London School of Economics and a barrister. In 2005, she and Hilary won the American Society of International Law's Goler T. Butcher Medal "for outstanding contributions to the development or effective realization of international human rights law."  An Overseas Affiliated Faculty Member at the University of Michigan, Christine also has been a Visiting Professor at Columbia University and Australian National University.
Her publications cover a broad range of fields and topics, from human rights and women's rights in particular to international criminal justice to international dispute resolution to the laws of occupation. She is inter alia a co-editor of The UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women: A Commentary (2012), which IntLawGrrl Lisa R. Pruitt reviewed in this IntLawGrrls post, and a co-author of The Making of International Law (2007).

Christine Chinkin

Christine's activities, which are too numerous to list here, include being an Editor of the American Journal of International Law and a member of the Advisory Board for the Leiden Journal of International Law, the European Journal of International Law, and the British Yearbook of International Law.  Christine has been a consultant on gender issues for many organizations, including Amnesty International, the Council of Europe, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, the Peruvian Truth and Reconciliation Commission, the UN Development Program, the UN Division for the Advancement of Women, and the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. She has also been a member of the Kosovo Human Rights Advisory Panel and the UN Human Rights Council Fact-Finding Mission to Gaza.
► Shelley Wright left Australia and the University of Sydney in 2002 to take up the Northern Directorship of the Akitsiraq Law School – a law degree program offered to Inuit students in Iqaluit, Nunavut. All but one of the graduates of this program were women. She was in the Arctic, where she's pictured below, for almost 3 years.
Shelley then moved down to Vancouver, Canada, where she is Chair of the Department of Aboriginal Studies at Langara College. In Shelley's words:

'Although I still have a strong interest in women's issues, this has been overtaken to some extent by a major interest in Aboriginal rights both within Canada (including especially Inuit) and internationally. I am no longer focusing primarily on international law or feminist perspectives, but instead incorporate all these interests into teaching courses in Aboriginal Studies (including Global Indigenous Perspectives and Aboriginal Women in Canada as well as other courses) and my current research project on the Arctic and climate change.

Shelley Wright

'The continuing interest in the work that Hilary, Chris and I did changed our lives as well as helping to change the direction of thinking about what seemed to us at the time the last bastion of male privilege in law – international law. In many ways it still is of course, but in other ways international law has changed dramatically, not only in better recognizing women's issues but also the perspectives and rights of Indigenous peoples and other vulnerable groups. I credit my own feminist background in helping make it easier for me to see the differing perspectives of Indigenous peoples, although in many ways Aboriginal women's issues and feminism are not always a comfortable fit.'

In their joint post below, Hilary, Christine, and Shelley discuss the making of their article and reflect on the piece 21 years after its publication.
Heartfelt welcome!

On October 31

On this day in ...
... 1863, 600 British troops embarked in an "armoured river fleet" to continue an invasion of the Waikato River in New Zealand, which had begun in July of the same year. The invasion was part of the Māori Wars, a conflict between British settlers and indigenous peoples that was waged from 1845 to 1872. More than a century later, in 1995, Queen Elizabeth II "agreed, in effect, to apologise for colonial injustices suffered by the Maori people in New Zealand," the Independent of London reported. Rather than leave the task of assent to her Governor-General, the queen gave her personal,

'royal assent to a New Zealand Act of Parliament explicitly acknowledging the injustices suffered by a Maori tribe whose lands were confiscated following a treaty signed by her predecessors.'

The statute also granted about $171 million in compensation. (credit for 1995 photo of British Queen Elizabeth II and Māori Queen Te Ātairangikaahu)

(Prior October 31 posts here, here, here, and here, and here.)

The Enduring Legacy of Christopher Columbus

The graduating class of my sixth grade year received a special gift from our teacher. It was a book of brightly colored paper held together with a faux-leather binding. We were instructed to capture the grand wisdom that only twelve year olds could impart as we headed into the unknown future of middle school.
I remember a great deal about that book. I remember the feel of the navy blue soft “pleather” cover encasing the pink, yellow and green sheets of paper; I remember that we folded each sheet once it had been written upon so that reading the words was like peeling back treasure. And I remember the gold-plated zipper that sealed the contents and protected this fount of wisdom from the elements.
But I do not remember a single entry in my graduation yearbook except for a short poem penned by a now long-forgotten classmate:

'Columbus discovered America in 1492, and I discovered a good friend when I discovered you.'

I lost my book decades ago, in one of a multitude of moves across the world, but those words have stayed with me.
What does it mean to say “Columbus discovered America in 1492”?
It suggests, for one, that it is possible to “discover” a continent of anywhere between one million to 18 million people that was continuously inhabited for 12 thousand years before Columbus. It suggests also that others had not discovered America before 1492, although researchers conclude the Vikings established a toehold in Greenland 500 years before Columbus; and, while hotly contested, some scholars maintain Africans, Portuguese and even the Chinese visited our shores well before Columbus. Most importantly, it suggests this act of discovery was Columbus’ seminal achievement – it was, in short, his legacy. But was it?
I am currently immersed in research on Columbus as I prepare to write a book, and I keep coming back to this question of legacy. Columbus seemed to believe his legacy would be his so-called discovery. In a plaintive letter to his benefactors protesting his mistreatment at the hands of the crown’s agents, Columbus rather self-righteously noted:

'For seven years was I at your royal court, where everyone to whom the enterprise was mentioned, treated it as ridiculous; but now there is not a man, down to the very tailors, who does not beg to be allowed to become a discoverer . . .' *

What I have come to understand is that even while the notion of “discovery” is highly contested, its impact on the people, history and law of the Americas is incontrovertible. We now have some idea of the impact Columbus had on the environment and people of this land, but comparatively little has been written on how the principle of discovery informed the laws of the New World. Columbus’ voyage of discovery was first and foremost a trade expedition, a business matter funded by the Catholic monarchs Ferdinand and Isabel. It was a private transaction with a very public objective. To achieve its aim, contracts had to be signed between the parties. The terms of those contracts would ultimately form the basis of law in the Americas.
Almost immediately after Columbus’ death, and for almost forty years thereafter, his descendants engaged in a nasty legal dispute with the monarchy. The Pleitos Colombinos – literally “the Columbus Lawsuits” – ultimately revolved around a single question:

What exactly did Columbus discover? 

On June 12

On this day in ...
... 1902 (110 years ago today), the Governor-General signed into law the Commonwealth Franchise Act for an Uniform Federal Franchise (image credit), by which women in 4 Australian states who did not yet enjoy suffrage were granted the right to vote in elections for both houses of a new Commonwealth Parliament. The statute did not provide universal suffrage, however; it forbade "aboriginal native[s] of Australia Africa Asia or the Islands of the Pacific except New Zealand" from voting, unless they were otherwise covered under Australia's Constitution.

(Prior June 12 posts are here, here, here, here, and here.)

On June 5

On this day in ...
... 1984, 10 years of negotiations culminated in the signing of the Inuvialuit Final Agreement by the Canadian government and the Inuvialuit people of the Western Arctic. Described as "the first comprehensive land claim agreement signed north of the 60th parallel and only the second in Canada," the Agreement created in the land at issue the nearly 1-million-square-kilometer Inuvialuit Settlement Region. (map credit) Negotiations over the issue of Inuvialuit self-government continue.

(Prior June 5 posts are here, here, here, here, and here.)

Sisters in Spirit: CEDAW to Launch Investigation into missing and murdered Canadian Aboriginal women and girls

(Delighted to welcome back alumna Doris Buss, who contributes this guest post)

The United Nations' Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women has decided to conduct an inquiry into the murders and disappearances of Aboriginal women and
girls across Canada.
There is an alarming rate of murder and disappearances of First Nations (Aboriginal) women and girls who are living ‘off reserve’ in Canadian cities and towns. When First Nations women disappear or are found murdered, police authorities – and this is the case in multiple cities and towns and over a long period of time – have consistently failed to act. In some cases, such as with the Lower Eastside of downtown Vancouver, this has meant that dozens of women have been killed and/or missing without any significant police response.
In 1991, a public inquiry into the death of Helen Betty Osborne (right) noted that it took 15 years for the police to arrest the four men who abducted, assaulted and killed her, even though the identity of the men was widely known. (photo credit) For years, Osborne’s death was dismissed as insignificant because she was alleged to have been a prostitute (she was in fact, a student training to be a teacher).
This pattern continues today and is the subject of an Amnesty International Canada report, and is being actively pursued by the Native Women’s Association of Canada, which has documented the disappearances and murders of over 600 First Nations women.
In January and September 2011, NWAC and the Canadian Feminist Alliance for International Action, fed-up with the Canadian Government’s inaction, asked the CEDAW Committee to undertake an investigation into the murders and disappearances of Aboriginal women.
For Sharon McIvor of FAFAIA (left; photo credit) the hope is that an investigation by the CEDAW Committee will follow the same processes and steps as the investigation by the Committee into missing and murdered women in Mexico.

On September 11

On this day in ...
... 1541 (470 years ago today), in what is now Chile, Inés Suárez committed what now would be understood as a war crime as a means to rally Spanish troops against indigenous peoples who were trying to recapture the territory on which the Spanish, just months later, had established the city of Santiago. To be precise, Suárez, then in her mid-30s, grabbed a sword and singlehandedly beheaded indigenous persons whom the settlers were holding hostage. She then took up arms and led the settlers to victory, as depicted in the painting at right. (credit) Born around 1507 in Spain, Suárez had journeyed across the Atlantic with her husband. He would die in battle; she would stay in the Spain's South American colonies and endeavor to set up "a new society based on Christian and egalitarian principles" with her lover, a Spanish field marshal. Known as a conquistadora española for the ferocity with which she fought, Suárez is the subject of a 2006 novel by Chile-born Isabel Allende.

(Prior September 11 posts are here, here, here, and here.)

On September 2

On this day in ...
... 1996 (15 years ago today), Emily Kame Kngwarreye died in Alice Springs, Australia, about 86 years after she'd been born in Soakage Bore, an Aboriginal community known as Utopia, about 270 kilometers northeast of Alice Springs. She found employment as a stockhand, unusual given that most women workers of the time were in domestic service. Encouraged by a woman working in the community, Emily began creating batik works based on traditional patterns. In the late 1980s she was introduced to the medium of painting and "[f]rom then on, right up to the week of her death, she painted with extraordinary vigour and invention." (image credit) She is considered "one of Australia's leading painters of modern times," and "[o]ne of the most highly respected Aboriginal artists of all time."

(Prior September 2 posts are here, here, here, and here.)

On August 9

On this day in ...
... 2011 (today), is marked the 16th annual International Day of the World’s Indigenous People. The day -- which commemorates the 1st meeting, in 1982, of the U.N.Working Group on Indigenous Populations of the Subcommission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights -- was set aside by 1994 resolution of the U.N. General Assembly. (image credit) As stated here, this is a day

to explore the history and culture of the millions all over the world who are Indigenous.

(Prior August 9 posts are here, here, here, and here.)

On July 9

On this day in ...
... 1991 (20 years ago today), the Paris-based International Human Rights Federation issued a report finding that Canadian authorities had committed human rights violations during clashes with indigenous peoples the previous year. The 2-1/2-month-long Oka Crisis of 1990 had stemmed from "a violent land dispute between the Mohawk nation of Kanesatake and the town of Oka"(right) about 50 km northwest of Montréal, Québec, which wanted to expand its golf course into disputed land. (credit for 2005 photo) "The Oka Crisis eventually precipitated the development of Canada's First Nations Policing Policy."

(Prior July 9 posts are here, here, here, and here.)

On June 25

On this day in ...
... 1876 (135 years ago today), in what is now eastern Montana, the 2-day Battle of Little Bighorn, which pitted 263 members of the United States' 7th Cavalry against "several thousand" Lakota Sioux and Cheyenne warriors, began. At battle's end, all the U.S. personnel were dead -- among them Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer (right). (photo credit) Leading the Native American opposition was the Lakota chief Sitting Bull (left), who took his followers north to Canada after the battle. (photo credit) In 1881, Sitting Bull would return and surrender to U.S. forces -- and would be "killed by Indian police on the Standing Rock Reservation in South Dakota on December 15, 1890."

(Prior June 25 posts are here, here, here, and here.)

Brazil / Inter-American Commission standoff

For over thirty-five years, a proposal to build the Belo Monte Dam on the Xingu River in northern Brazil has been fraught with controversy. This week, that controversy escalated to a new level when Brazilian President, Dilma Rousseff ordered an immediate interruption in relations with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.
Rousseff's order comes on the heels of a request PM 382/10, issued on April 1, in which the Inter-American Commission asked that the State of Brazil

'immediately suspend the licensing process for the Belo Monte Hydroelectric Plant project and stop any construction work from moving forward until certain minimum conditions are met.'

Those minimum requirements include free, prior, informed, good faith, culturally appropriate consultations with the communities that will be negatively impacted should the project be realized. An estimated 20,000-50,000 people are expected to be displaced in the 190-plus square miles that would have to be flooded to make the Belo Monte Dam operational. (credit for above right photo of site at issue)
The Brazilian government says that the Belo Monte Dam is crucial for development, as it is expected that it will provide electricity to 23 million homes:
► Defense Minister Nelson Jobim said in April that the government would not honor the request of the Inter-American Commission, and he argued that preserving indigenous communities’ way of life should not force 20 million people living in the Amazon region into underdevelopment.
► Senator Flexa Ribeiro, president of the Senate Sub-Committee charged with oversight of the dam project, has stated:

'The request is absurd. It even threatens Brazilian sovereignty.'

► The Foreign Minister has called the Commission's measures “unjustifiable.”
Late last week the Brazilian mining company, Vale, agreed to buy a $1.5 billion stake in the Belo Monte Dam consortium. After significant domestic legal controversy, construction on the dam has recently begun and will cost approximately $17 billion.
This week the Folha de Sao Paolo reported that President Rousseff is “disappointed and irritated” by the Commission's Precautionary Measure request. Ruy Casaes, the Brazilian ambassador to the Organization of American States, was ordered to remain in Brasilia rather than return to Costa Rica. In addition, Rousseff has decided both to suspend Brazil’s approximately $800,000 annual contribution to the Inter-American Commission and to desist from advancing the candidacy of a Brazilian to sit on that body.

Using Accountability Mechanisms to Change Corporate Practice in Mexico

(We're delighted to welcome back Natalie Bridgeman Fields, Executive Director of Accountability Counsel, who contributes today's guest post...)

Many thanks to IntLawGrrls for the opportunity to contribute a guest post.

On February 21st, construction of the Cerro de Oro Hydropower Project halted in Oaxaca, Mexico.

Accountability Counsel filed a complaint on behalf of three affected communities in November 2010 based on a wide variety of human rights and environmental problems associated with the Project. The communities received no information about the Project, were not consulted, impacts on indigenous groups were not considered, and there were insufficient plans to address and mitigate social and environmental impacts, including destruction of important waterways that communities depend on for household use, consumption and fishing. (The picture at right shows some of the project construction that is destroying the affected communities' creek, Arroyo Sal). The communities also have had problems with land acquisition and the lack of a required, local grievance mechanism to raise their concerns. The community complaints are here and here.

We submitted the complaint to the U.S. federal agency that financed the project, the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (“OPIC”). (The picture below left depcits the indigenous Chinanteco community of Cerro de Oro voting to file a complaint). OPIC invested $60 million in U.S.-based Conduit Capital Partners, LLC, the key Project sponsor. The complaint is the fifth ever filed with the internal OPIC Office of Accountability, which U.S. Congress created in 2005 so that complaints like this one can be addressed in a fair and objective manner. The complaint seeks the Office’s assistance with resolving community concerns about the project through the problem-solving function, and seeks to hold OPIC accountable for its failures to uphold its own policies through the compliance function.

Before the Office of Accountability even initiated its problem-solving role, based on the information in our complaint to the OPIC Office of Accountability, members of the Oaxacan State Congress launched an investigation into the Project. Their Commission convened a meeting last Thursday, February 17th, where the company, communities, and governmental officials all presented their views. At the meeting, the communities demanded suspension of the Project by Monday, February 21st, and the Congressional Commission supported the community demand. The company, wisely realizing that continued construction was exacerbating the situation, called me on Friday to announce at least temporary suspension of work.

Now, with construction of the Project suspended, the communities and the company will be able to return to the OPIC Office of Accountability process to begin dialogue. We hope that this largely untested accountability mechanism will have a constructive role in the process. The complex dynamics at work here have created at least a temporary victory for the communities who were, until today, watching chemicals used in construction enter their drinking water and their livelihoods eroded. We hope the communities and company can reach a negotiated solution soon so that we can return to the portion of the complaint focused on OPIC itself – a U.S. federal agency that financed a project in vast non-compliance with OPIC’s own policies and procedures meant to protect people and the environment.

Accountability Counsel, a legal non-profit founded in San Francisco in 2009, aims to defend the environmental and human rights of communities around the world by creating, strengthening, and using accountability systems. In particular, we specialize in non-judicial grievance procedures related to international finance and development. We accomplish our mission by:

1. raising awareness and providing legal support to facilitate community complaints to accountability mechanisms, and
2. providing expert policy advice to advocate for new avenues of redress, and for reforms so that existing mechanisms are accessible, robust, and effective tools for justice.
   

Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples

Many thanks to our friend and colleague Rita Maran (left), a lecturer on Human Rights at U.C. Berkeley and president of the United Nations Association-USA East Bay Chapter, for bringing to our attention a recent development in indigenous rights. (Long-time readers will recall we celebrated Rita's birthday a few years back with a poem...). Rita writes:

The United States recently "lend[ed] its support" to the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (DRIP). The US had not voted for the Declaration when the General Assembly adopted it in 2007. Canada, Australia, and New Zealand also did not vote Yes at that time, but all three states have since endorsed the Declaration; the US is the latest and last. It must be remembered that the Declaration is not a treaty, and is therefore not legally binding. President Obama announced this "change of position," attributing it in part to Native Americans' persuasion and perseverance on the issue.
President Obama told the White House Tribal Nations Conference in December 2010:

But I want to be clear: What matters far more than words -- what matters far more than any resolution or declaration -- are actions to match those words. That's the standard I expect my administration to be held to.

For complete details: Announcement of U.S. Support for the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples" Statement by U.S. Government December 2010.

On December 29

On this day in ...
.... 1890 (120 years ago today), in South Dakota, U.S. cavalry troops entered an encampment of Lakota Sioux. A shot was fired and a gunfight ensued. When the Wounded Knee Massacre was over, more than 150 Lakota children, women, and men were dead -- indeed, the actual death toll may have been twice that; another 47 children and women, plus 4 men, were wounded. (credit for 2003 photo of tombstone marking mass grave, on Pine Ridge reservation) U.S.military casualties: 25 dead, 39 wounded. Eyewitness accounts may be found here.

(Prior December 29 posts are here, here, and here.)

In passing: Ellen L. Lutz

Ellen L. Lutz, an international human rights lawyer, teacher, and activist, died this past Thursday, November 4, at her home in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The cause was metastatic breast cancer. She was 55.
During her final two years battling the disease, Ellen (near right) directed the Cambridge-based human rights organization Cultural Survival, co-edited two pioneering books (Prosecuting Heads of State, (Cambridge U. Press) and Human Rights and Conflict Management in Context (Syracuse U. Press), submitted formal reviews on state behavior to the UN Human Rights Council, led international litigation on behalf of Panama’s threatened Nobe Indians, and sang alto with the Harvard-Radcliffe Chorus. She did each with equal enthusiasm and skill.
Her concern for human rights began when, as a 15-year-old exchange student to Uruguay, she witnessed the onset of Uruguay’s state sponsored “Dirty War,” and supported the international human rights movements such actions spawned across Latin American during the 1970s. After graduating Summa Cum Laude from Temple University (1976) and obtaining a Master’s Degree in Anthropology from Bryn Mawr (1978), Ellen took a Law Degree in International Law and Human Rights from Boalt Hall Law School (University of California at Berkeley) in 1985.
Ellen’s persistent interest in Latin America continued as professional work with Amnesty International (1979-81), in Washington, D.C., and in San Francisco.
She later headed the California office of Human Rights Watch (1989-94), where she conducted research and published on little-known but extensive human rights abuses in Mexico, and she was co-counsel in two groundbreaking human rights cases in U.S. courts, against the infamous Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos and Argentine General Suarez-Mason.
Moving with her family to Westborough, Massachusetts, in 1994, she helped to set up and then served as Executive Director of the Center for Human Rights and Conflict Resolution at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, taught international law. human rights, and mediation at Tufts, Harvard and the University of Massachusetts, and wrote widely. One of her students, now a professor at Occidental College, recalled how

warm and desirous she was of connecting to students amid the formal Fletcher iciness, a marvelous force of nature.

Ellen was asked to become Executive Director of Cultural Survival in 2004, where she increased the participation of indigenous people on the Board of Directors and Program Council, while steering the organization away from local development projects to broad human rights initiatives. Ellen said:

Development work like building schools, digging wells, and providing services is what governments should be doing. Our work is to make sure governments live up to their obligations.

One of her colleagues wrote,

It would be difficult to quantify Ellen’s ferocious passion for justice. Her zeal and natural warm-heartedness combined with a legal rigor that made her a truly formidable advocate.

There was much of such personal and professional praise. But, perhaps the most encompassing and, for Ellen, meaningful compliment came from Stella Tamang, a Nepalese tribal leader and friend:

To Ellen, my Kalyana Mitra,
In Buddhism Kalyana means Wellbeing and Mitra means friend. Kalyana Mitra therefore means friends who always think about their wellbeing. You have been such wonderful friend, a constant support during the problems I was facing about the political problem back in Nepal. We also talked about family, our children, and life. I am blessed to have a friend like you. We believe that if a person has done good Karma, he or she gets to meet with wonderful people, and you are the one for me...

And Ellen was not a Buddhist. Ellen is survived by her husband, Theodore Macdonald, an anthropologist previously with Cultural Survival and now with Harvard University, and her two children from a previous marriage, David and Julia Randall, now studying at the University of Massachusetts and Harvard, respectively. Her cat, Misty, and dog, Churi, are well taken care of. Her friends, among them many women human rights lawyers, are grateful to her for her wise counsel and unflagging dignity. All are thankful to their Kalyana Mitra.

On October 13

On this day in ...
... 1862, Mary Henrietta Kingsley (top left) was born in Islington, England. She received no formal education but was taught German by her father, a traveler and writer, because it then was the language of medical research. Kingsley taught herself from the many books in her father's library. At age 29 her parents died within weeks of each other; thereafter what had been a vicarious life of travel became a real one. Kingsley ventured out in 1893, "[d]ressed in a stiff black skirt and blouse, with high buttoned shoes and a perky hat." She explained her choice of clothing thusly:

'You have no right to go about Africa in things you would be ashamed to be seen in at home.'

Kingsley would make a number of journeys to West and Central Africa, bring back to England new animals, and write books that increased English knowledge of the continent to Europe's south -- and unlike missionaries of the time, she defended indigenous practices, such as polygamy. Among her bestsellers was Travels in West Africa (1897). Kingsley died of enteric fever in 1900, while serving as a nurse in the Boer War in South Africa.

(Prior October 13 posts are here, here, and here.)