Process to Adopt the Declaration

 

Early September 2007: An agreement agreement reached between the co-sponsors (67 countries) of the Declaration and the African Group of States (53 countries) on an amended text of the Declaration. This amended text was submitted as a draft resolution to the General Assembly for adoption on 13 September. The draft resolution is available in all languages.

January 2007: The Third Committee (Social, Humanitarian and Cultural) on 28 December 2006 adopted a draft resolution that would see the General Assembly defer consideration and action on the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, with the aim of concluding consideration of the Declaration before the end of its current sixty-first session.

A revised draft resolution, whose main sponsor was Peru, with a number of European and Latin American countries listed as co-sponsors, was to be considered by the Assembly. An initiative led by Namibia, co-sponsored by a number of African countries, was for the Assembly to decide “to defer consideration and action on the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples to allow time for further consultations thereon”. Furthermore, the Assembly would also decide “to conclude consideration of the Declaration before the end of its sixty-first session”.

The amendments were adopted by a vote of 82 in favour to 67 against, with 25 abstentions (annex II). The amended draft was then adopted with a vote of 83 in favour to none against, with 91 abstentions (annex III), with the latter notably including countries that had been co-sponsors of the original motions.

Below are the links to the revised resolution to adopt the Declaration and the amendment.

(A/C.3/61/L.18/Rev.1)

(A/C.3/61/L.57/Rev.1)

The final result of the discussions is contained in General Assembly Resolution 61/178, entitled Working group of the Commission on Human Rights to elaborate a draft declaration in accordance with paragraph 5 of General Assembly resolution 49/214 of 23 December 1994

These documents can also be retrieved from the UN’s ODS system.

The draft is contained in the Report of the Human Rights Council