News Analysis
The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) is a non-binding resolution from an international body. Even so, it is exerting a tangible influence in Canada on issues ranging from a move in B.C. to rename streets, towns, and cities, to a push to grant rivers “legal personhood.”
UNDRIP is a United Nations resolution passed in September 2007. The 15-page document contains 46 “Articles” that put forth a vision of the rights of indigenous peoples worldwide.
Some of these Articles are simple and have few consequences for Canada, such as the right to “enjoy fully all rights established under applicable international and domestic labour law” in Article 17. Others have potentially far-reaching domestic ramifications, notably “the right to autonomy or self-government” in Article 4, or the right to promote indigenous “juridical systems or customs” in Article 34….