ABSTRACT
Indigenous peoples’ rights activists from Cambodia have broadened their strategies to include engagement with international human rights mechanisms and bodies that focus on indigenous peoples, such as the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (UNPFII). The participation of indigenous peoples from Cambodia provides numerous examples of the ambivalence for indigenous individuals and communities of intervening at the UN. The Cambodian indigenous delegates are from villages where poverty and oppression are severe. There are good grounds for immediate cynicism about human rights in general, and indigenous peoples’ human rights in particular. The Asian indigenous peoples’ movement is also affected by the sheer force, speed, and violence with which the state and commercial interests are converting indigenous lands, forests, territories, and resources into capital and commodities, throughout much of Asia. The human rights of indigenous peoples are part of normative international law, but the difference between these norms and their realization on the ground is immense.
