UN Declaration on Rights of Indigenous Peoples
A Background to New Zealand Government Objections:
Throughout the process of drafting this declaration, the New Zealand government has opposed the right of indigenous peoples to self-determination. It has isolated itself among the several English speaking colonising powers, with USA, Canada and Australia all accepting the morality of this right to self-determination (although all three have now voted against the final Declaration, see more here).
The New Zealand government has sought to replace the right to self-determination with the much more limited concept of ‘self management’. It has stated, “Maori did not have a right to self-determination because we are urbanised and lack the defined territory in which self-determination vests.†However, in international law self-determination is a right inherent in peoples, not territory. The New Zealand government has also opposed he use of the term ‘peoples’, preferring the term ‘populations’. By labeling Maori as a population the government seeks to get around rights that exist in UN conventions such as those on civil and political rights, which are vested in peoples not populations.
The government has sought to ensure that the Declaration is consistent with domestic law, in an effort to protect the privilege of the majority, despite the Declaration seeking to create international norms and not domestic ones.
For more information, see the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues
Note:
self-de·ter·mi·na·tion
–noun
3. the determining by the people of the form their government shall have, without reference to the wishes of any other nation, esp. by people of a territory or former colony.
(http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/self-determination)
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