ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the various ways in which indigenous peoples' representatives have been involved in issues that are affecting them since they first appealed to the UN to define their rights. The chapter concentrates on the changes that have occurred since the adoption of the UN Declaration on the rights of indigenous peoples, in 2007. It explores the hallmarks of the protocols defined by the UN member states, but function according to modalities that differ from those of national politics. The indigenous peoples’ movement, which emerged at the end of the 1970s, strives for recognition of the rights of populations formerly or currently dominated by colonial states, and for their implementation as outlined in UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP). Ten years after the adoption of UNDRIP, indigenous leaders are still pressuring the UN system and, through it, the rest of the world, to respect the rights of indigenous peoples.
