The Paradox of Indigenous Peoples’ Participation at the UN: The Dance of Meaningful Change Against State Sovereignty and Territorial Integrity

Abstract

The UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) is forging major changes in the international system and also within some settler states, as the implementation of Indigenous rights ultimately requires a re-thinking and re-ordering of sovereignty, territoriality, decolonization, liberalism, and human rights. This chapter argues that the UNDRIP is more than just a set of norms emerging and diffusing on the global stage. Rather, Indigenous rights, as embodied in the Declaration, also represent a moment of revolutionary transformation in global politics, but are often overlooked and under-appreciated, in both international relations theory and in practice. Further, the Indigenous rights movement provides vivid examples of viable, alternative ways of engaging in global politics. Indigenous rights and the Indigenous rights movement thus represent important shifts in both the structure and the practice of global politics, serving as what is termed here, a transformational norm vector, pointing the way towards some alternative ways of doing global politics, and new imaginings of political order that can potentially come to exist.