ABSTRACT
This chapter reflects on whether and how indigenous peoples' rights law could inspire children's rights law. A first challenge that is common to indigenous peoples' rights law and children's rights law concerns the demarcation of their personal scope. The Working Group on Indigenous Populations, which was established in 1982, followed the position of indigenous peoples, as it decided not to adopt a formal definition. During the last decades, categorical rights have been created within human rights law to rectify historical situations of substantive inequality, discrimination and marginalisation of certain groups. A second domain characterised by some remarkable parallels concerns the way in which children and indigenous peoples have been represented and constructed in Western society, not only in popular discourse but also in scholarship. The chapter compares the two key provisions on participation in both fields of law, and closes with the identification of some common challenges in the realisation of the participation rights of indigenous peoples and children.
