New Zealand to back UN text on indigenous rights (The Vancouver Sun)

19 Apr New Zealand to back UN text on indigenous rights (The Vancouver Sun)

In a reversal of its position, New Zealand announced on Monday that it now backed a UN declaration on indigenous people’s rights, leaving the United States and Canada the only countries on record as opposing it.  But in a statement to a UN forum on indigenous issues, Maori Affairs Minister Pita Sharples made clear the support was conditional on New Zealand law taking precedence on controversial aspects of the declaration’s principles.  The nonbinding UN document was passed by the General Assembly in September 2007. It says indigenous people “have the right to self-determination” and “have the right to the lands, territories and resources which they have traditionally owned, occupied, or otherwise used and acquired…” go to article