Sioux Nation Treaty Council - est 1894

1894 Sioux Nation Treaty Council Statement

to the United Nations Human Rights Council 58^th Session

March, 2025, Under Agenda Item 4.

The 1894 Sioux Nation Treaty Council (SNTC) is located in the center of North America. We are bringing two issues which have an adverse effect on our nation and many others, and in the process are violating our human rights. We are also bringing two recommendations to rectify these oversights.

 These two issues are:

 1.) there is a need for an International Forum that can assist in the resolution of treaties and agreements made between colonizing governments and Indigenous nations, and

 2.) the 2007 UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP).

Although International Treaties are under international law’s juridical umbrella, there has always been and continues to be a great need for an International Forum to assist in resolving and enforcing treaties or agreements made between colonizing governments and Indigenous Nations. With the Sioux Nation, it is the flagrant violation of the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868 by the United States (US). In the 1868 Treaty, Article II specifically designates a treaty land territory for our “absolute and undisturbed use and occupation.” Our culture and values are in direct opposition to the values of the US. However, since 1874, the US has belligerently occupied our entire Treaty Territory in the same manner as the Nazi occupation of various nations in Europe during the Second World War. Surely, our Sioux Nation is also entitled to the same protection from the United Nations that is given to other nations. We only seek the full enforcement of the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868, and our freedom from the belligerent occupation and domination by the United States.

 In his 1999 Study on Treaties...between States and Indigenous nations, in Paragraph 277, 278, and 279, Special Rapporteur Professor Miguel Alfonso Martinez states: 

277. It is well known that fulfilment, in good faith, of legal obligations that are not in contradiction with the Charter of the United Nations Art. 2.2) is considered one of the tenets of present day positive international law and one of the most important principles ruling international relations, being, as it is, a peremptory norm of general international law (jus cogens). Of course, article 26 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties has enshrined the principle of pacta sunt servanda as the cornerstone of the law of treaties, and mention has already been made... of the importance of article 27 of that Convention.

278. It should also be borne in mind that the draft United Nations declaration on the rights of indigenous peoples expresses the same concept with particular emphasis. In article 36, it establishes that “Indigenous peoples have the right to the recognition, observance and enforcement of treaties, agreements and other constructive arrangements concluded with States or their successors, according to their original spirit and intent, and to have States honour and respect such treaties, agreements and other constructive arrangements”.

279. On the other hand, the unilateral termination of a treaty or of any other international legally binding instrument, or the non-fulfilment of the obligations contained in its provisions, has been and continues to be unacceptable behaviour according to both the Law of Nations and more modern international law. The same can be said with respect to the breaching of treaty provisions. All these actions determine the international responsibility of the State involved.”

 The Special Rapporteur clearly provided for a resolution of this issue of Treaties and agreements with colonizing governments with Article 36 of the Original text of UNDRIP. However, the Original text was changed as presented in the following.

From 1982 until 1994, the SNTC participated with the UN Working Group on Indigenous Populations (WGIP) which drafted the Original Declaration. The WGIP approved the Original Declaration then it was sent to the Sub-Commission on the Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities (Sub-Commission). The SNTC was also at the meeting in 1994 of the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) when that body was considering passage of the Original Declaration. Our delegates overheard a conversation when the US delegation said that the Declaration needed further debates because the US delegation believed that our two delegates were uneducated and could not debate the changes the US wanted to make. The Original Declaration, after its approval by two Committees, the WGIP and the Sub-Commission, was submitted to the CHR and was diverted to an Intersessional Working Group on the Draft Declaration (WGDD) for the next ten (10) years.

In 2004, a Hunger Strike and Prayer Fast was held by six (6) Indigenous representatives in the room where the debates were being held for the final time. Their purpose was to preserve the Original text. With the promise of the Vice Chairperson of the UN Commission on Human Rights, Ambassador Gordan Markotic, Croatia, to protect the Original Declaration, the Indigenous Representatives ended their Prayer Fast-Hunger Strike. Ambassador Markotic promised that the Working Group Declaration written by Sr. Louis Enrique Chavez, the Rapporteur of the WGDD, would not be presented to the Commission as it did not have the consensus of the Indigenous delegations including many States. However, the Working Group Declaration written by Chavez was the only one presented to the new UN Human Rights Council in 2006. (The Commission on Human Rights was eliminated between 2004 and 2006.)

In 2006, when the Working Group Declaration was presented to the new HRC for approval, the African group of member states tabled it. They wanted more time to go over it and make additional changes after more than twenty (20) years of discussion and debates. The African group did make changes without the input of the world’s Indigenous Nations and Peoples. This action constituted a violation of the right of free, prior, and informed consent of the world’s Indigenous Nations and Peoples.

In 2007, the current UNDRIP was subsequently passed by the HRC. This is verified in the book, Indigenous Nations Rights in the Balance, Living Justice Press, St. Paul, MN, USA, 2013. The SNTC subsequently sent individual letters to the Secretary-General and the General Assembly trying to stop the final passage of the 2007 UNDRIP to no avail.

Recently, information regarding Canada and Australia’s meetings to change the DRIP in closed door sessions was exposed. Australia’s state papers become public information after twenty (20) years. These closed door meetings took place in the early 2000s.¹ To weaken any person’s human rights is an abomination, but for governments to do this is anathema.

These two grave issues have no other place to be exposed and resolved. The UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues and the Expert Mechanism on Indigenous Peoples do not have a mandate to bring international Indigenous treaty issues or the issues regarding the weakening of the Declaration to the attention of the HRC.

Recommendations:

1. An International Forum to deal with the issue of International Treaties made between Indigenous Nations and colonizing governments should be the UN Decolonization Committee, an organization already established within the UN system that works with occupied territories. As the Decolonization Committee is already a part of the UN system, there should be no objection from member States who are also colonizing governments such as the US, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.

2. The HRC must recommend to the General Assembly that the 2007 UNDRIP must be rescinded and replaced with the 1994 Original Declaration. This action would prove to all the world that transparency, free, prior and informed consent is truly available to all, and that the United Nations has not betrayed Indigenous Peoples and Nations.

This Statement is strongly supported by Tonatierra-An Embassy of Indigenous Peoples in North America; the Western Shoshone Defense Project in North America; and Koekoea, New Zealand.

¹“Canada led efforts to weaken original UN Indigenous rights declaration; Canada and Australia crafted government-friendly UNDRIP substitute in 2002-03, documents show”, Brett Forester, CBC News, Posted: Jan 15, 2024.