3.5 Indigenous Peoples' Rights

The people who were already there

Long before European ships arrived, the lands now called the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand were home to peoples with their own languages, laws, spiritual traditions and deep connections to the land. These are the world's indigenous peoples -- the original inhabitants of territories later colonised -- and across the English-speaking world they continue to live with the consequences of centuries of dispossession, cultural destruction and discrimination, while also carrying distinct and vibrant cultures.

The United Nations defines indigenous peoples as communities with historical continuity to pre-colonial societies who consider themselves distinct from the dominant society, are determined to preserve their ancestral territories and identities, and form non-dominant sectors of society. There are roughly 476 million indigenous people worldwide, in over 5,000 distinct groups across more than 90 countries. To understand their situation today, you have to understand colonialism's impact: land dispossession that severed peoples from territory central to their identity and spirituality; population collapse, as European diseases killed 90 percent or more of some populations within decades; cultural destruction, including the forced removal of children to "civilise" them; political marginalisation in nations built on their lands; and ongoing structural inequality in health, education, poverty and the justice system.

The vocabulary of injustice -- and of repair

Understanding indigenous rights means learning a precise vocabulary. Colonialism is a system in which one country takes political and economic control over another territory; settler colonialism is a particular form in which colonisers come to permanently occupy and build a society on indigenous land rather than just extracting resources -- the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand are settler colonial states. Self-determination is the right of indigenous peoples to freely determine their political status and pursue their development, recognised in the 2007 UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Sovereignty, in this context, is the inherent right of indigenous nations to govern themselves and their territories -- a right that predates colonial states and, many argue, was never legitimately surrendered. Terra nullius, Latin for "nobody's land," was the legal fiction used to justify taking indigenous lands by pretending they were unowned. Forced assimilation describes policies designed to destroy indigenous cultures by compelling people to adopt the dominant society's language and customs, and cultural genocide names the deliberate destruction of a people's cultural heritage -- a term many scholars apply to these histories.

Nothing makes this concrete more painfully than the policy of removing children. In Canada, from the 1880s until 1996, an estimated 150,000 indigenous children were forced into government-funded, church-run residential schools, punished for speaking their languages, and subjected to abuse and neglect; thousands died. In 2021, ground-penetrating radar at former school sites in Kamloops revealed unmarked graves, shocking the nation. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (2008-2015) documented survivors' experiences and issued 94 Calls to Action, and in 2008 the Prime Minister issued a formal apology. In Australia, from roughly 1910 to 1970, government policy removed an estimated 10 to 33 percent of indigenous children -- the Stolen Generations -- aiming to "breed out" indigenous identity; the 1997 Bringing Them Home report led to a formal national apology in 2008. Both stories share a pattern: deliberate cultural destruction through the removal of children, lasting intergenerational trauma, formal acknowledgment through apologies and commissions, and a significant gap that remains between symbolic reconciliation and substantive change.

Self-determination and reconciliation today

The most important international framework is the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), adopted in 2007, affirming rights to self-determination, to maintain distinct institutions, to be free from forced assimilation, to their lands and resources, and to control their cultural heritage. Notably, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the US initially voted against it, though all four later endorsed it. Across these countries, the struggles continue in distinct forms. In the United States, 574 federally recognised tribal nations have varying sovereignty, reservations face high poverty, and struggles over water and the environment -- like the Standing Rock protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline in 2016 -- and the crisis of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women draw growing attention. In Canada, the TRC's 94 Calls to Action offer a roadmap, but progress is slow, with clean-water crises and land disputes ongoing, and a national inquiry calling the situation of missing and murdered women a "genocide." In Australia, "Closing the Gap" targets aim to reduce disparities, the 2017 Uluru Statement from the Heart called for a constitutionally enshrined Indigenous Voice to Parliament -- a 2023 referendum on which was defeated -- and Aboriginal Australians have the lowest life expectancy of any indigenous group in a developed country. In New Zealand, the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi provides a legal framework, the Waitangi Tribunal hears treaty-breach claims, and Maori language and culture have seen significant revitalisation.

Norway has its own indigenous people, the Sami, who have faced many of the same challenges. Historical assimilation policies known as Norwegianisation suppressed Sami language and culture; the Sami Parliament, Sametinget, established in 1989, gives the Sami a consultative role; and land rights remain contentious, especially over reindeer herding, wind farms and resource extraction. In 2023 the Norwegian Supreme Court ruled that a wind farm on the Fosen peninsula violated Sami reindeer-herding rights, and the government's slow response sparked protests; a Truth and Reconciliation Commission for the Sami and Kven peoples was established in 2018. Useful concepts here include intergenerational trauma, harm transmitted across generations; land rights or native title, recognising the centrality of land to indigenous identity; decolonisation, undoing colonialism's lasting effects; and free, prior and informed consent (FPIC), the principle that indigenous peoples must consent before projects affecting their lands proceed. The common thread is that genuine progress requires not only legal reform but cultural change and real engagement with indigenous perspectives.

In short

Indigenous peoples across the English-speaking world share a history of colonialism, land dispossession, cultural destruction and political marginalisation, with settler colonialism meaning colonisers permanently occupied their lands. Policies like residential schools and forced child removal caused intergenerational trauma, acknowledged in recent decades through apologies and truth commissions -- though a significant gap between symbolic and substantive change persists. International frameworks like UNDRIP recognise rights to self-determination, land, culture and free, prior and informed consent. Norway's Sami people have faced similar patterns, as the Fosen case shows. Genuine reconciliation, the chapter concludes, requires not only legal reform but cultural transformation and real engagement with indigenous perspectives.