ABSTRACT
The Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples is considered the first comprehensive internationally agreed document that deals with the rights of indigenous peoples, despite the fact that it does not have legally binding force attached to it. This chapter looks at some of the problems related to the recognition and definition of indigenous rights in the context of international law and human rights standards. The mandate of the Working Group on Indigenous Populations (WGIP) was extended by the United Nations (UN) Commission on Human Rights into the Second International Decade of the World's Indigenous People, and the General Assembly considered the adoption of the Declaration to be major objective of the Decade. Since 1995, the direct participation of indigenous groups in negotiations of international documents related to them has provided a high level of legitimacy to the issues raised by the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP).
