ABSTRACT
Special Rapporteur Miguel Martinez of the UN Study on Treaties identified what he called the 'Indigenous problematic' as an ethical dilemma. Indigenous Peoples have not been created out of international law; we have come to international law as preexisting, already formed entities, as subjects in international law in our own right and from within First Nation's horizons. Martinez called on the UN state members to correct the debt they owed to Indigenous Peoples as a result of their historical misdeeds against us. At the time the Treaty Study was written, the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (UNPFII) had not yet come into existence; it was established in 2000. The UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples was adopted in September 2007. The characterisation of the declaration as being 'human rights' in character places further limits and has the effect of emptying Article 3 of its group rights content while conforming to the narrow interpretative agenda of states.
