1. United Nations (including the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues)
Background
The United Nations ("UN") was established in 1945 to pursue four key purposes: to maintain international peace and security; to develop friendly relations among nations; to achieve international co-operation in solving international social, economic, cultural or humanitarian problems and to promote human rights; and to be a centre for harmonising the actions of nations to achieve these ends.
Structure of the UN
The UN has six principle organs. The highest body of the UN is the General Assembly (UNGA). It meets annually to review all of the UN activities. Each member country (including New Zealand) has one vote in the UNGA.
The UN Security Council is the primary organ responsible for maintaining international peace and security. It has the power to make decisions that are binding on UN members. The Security Council is not directly involved in human rights issues so it is unlikely to be involved in issues directly related to indigenous issues.
The UN Secretariat, staffed by international civil servants from all Member States, is responsible for administering the UN's programmes and policies. Its duties are as varied as the problems dealt with by the UN. The most senior UN official is the Secretary-General.
The UN comprises a number of subsidiary bodies covering a wide variety of issues, including human rights, legal issues, disarmament, women's rights and more. Many of these bodies come under the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), which, in turn, reports to the General Assembly.
The UN is also comprised of many bodies with a degree of independence, called Specialised Agencies. They address specific technical issues such as health, food, education, and include organisations such as the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) (see fact sheet 5), United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) (see fact sheet 2), the International Labour Organisation (ILO) (see fact sheet 10) and the World Health Organisation (WHO) (see fact sheet 9), each of which has an interest in the situation of indigenous peoples and traditional knowledge. For more information on these specialised agencies, please refer to the fact sheets on these bodies.
The UN also includes the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which is the principle judicial organ of the UN. The ICJ only considers disputes between governments and does not receive submissions from individuals.
Consideration of Traditional Knowledge
As outlined above, a number of commissions, specialised agencies and related organisations of the UN consider traditional knowledge and related issues as part of their work programmes. The UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues is one such body.
UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues
The proposal to create a permanent forum focused on indigenous issues was officially introduced at the Vienna World Conference on Human Rights in 1993 (although indigenous peoples had been advocating for a forum for many years prior). After seven years of deliberation, the ECOSOC established the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous issues on 28 July 2000.
The purpose of the Permanent Forum is to serve as an advisory body to ECOSOC, with a mandate to discuss indigenous issues relating to economic and social development, culture, the environment, education, health and human rights.
The Permanent Forum aims to promote and co-ordinate the UN agencies that deal with indigenous issues. The Permanent Forum achieves this through preparing and disseminating information on indigenous issues to other UN agencies. The Permanent Forum also attends and participates in other UN agency meetings, for example, WIPO (see fact sheet 5).
The Forum is made up of 16 independent experts, with eight of the members nominated by indigenous peoples and eight nominated by Governments. Indigenous members are nominated according to seven regions as determined by indigenous groups. The regions are: Africa; the Arctic and Europe; Asia; Central and South America and the Caribbean; the Russian Federation and Eastern Europe; North America; and the Pacific - with one additional seat that rotates among the three most highly populated regions: Africa; Asia; and Central and South America and the Caribbean. The indigenous members of the Permanent Forum do not represent a particular State, indigenous community or region; but are experts serving in their personal capacities.
The Permanent Forum is unique in two ways. First, both State and indigenous representatives sit alongside each other in the deliberations. This is regarded as revolutionary because traditionally the UN has been a forum reserved only for States. Second, the process allows indigenous peoples to raise and highlight issues that exist in their countries whereas traditionally, the UN was used as a forum to highlight issues between States.
The Permanent Forum held its first meeting in May 2002, which was attended by a number of indigenous delegates, including Māori. It has met twice since. The Permanent Forum reports annually to ECOSOC, which then reports to the United Nations General Assembly.
New Zealand Involvement
Since its inception, New Zealand has been an active supporter of the activities of the UN. We take pride in our reputation as a good international citizen, and remain committed to international burden sharing and seeking global solutions to global problems. New Zealand also endeavours to support indigenous issues in the various fora within the UN system.
Acknowledgement
The Ministry of Economic Development would like to acknowledge the United Nations and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade for the information used in preparing this fact sheet.
To access a definitive chart of the structure of the United Nations visit:
Organization Chart of the United Nations .
For further information visit: United Nations or New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade .
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