ABSTRACT
Over a very short period, the few decades since the early 1970s, "indigenous peoples" has been transformed from a prosaic description without much significance in international law and politics, into a concept with considerable power as a basis for group mobilization, international standard setting, transnational networks and programmatic activity of intergovernmental and nongovernmental organizations. Australasia and the Nordic countries—groups based in different Asian states have more recently begun to participate in international institutions and gatherings of "indigenous peoples", and transnational networks have been formed in Asia under the rubric "indigenous peoples". The complexity of issues raised by indigenous peoples is reflected in the range of national, transnational and interstate institutional mechanisms deployed. International mechanisms include formal judicial or rule-governed approaches, special commissions, joint decision-making bodies, fact-finding and mediating bodies, consultative groups and negotiating fora. The concept of "indigenous peoples" carries within it grounds of justification related to prior occupancy, dispossession and group identity.
