Global Health Watch 1 in one file

12 Australian indigenous children in the desert exercise their rights to
traditional methods of food gathering.
international standards oblige states to ensure that Indigenous peoples benefit
equally and justly from development. These include the UN Declaration on the
Rights of Persons Belonging to National or Ethnic, Religious and Linguistic
Minorities (UNDM). Indigenous peoples also have ‘the right to decide their
own priorities for the process of development ... and shall participate in the
formulation, implementation and evaluation of plans and programmes for
national and regional development which may affect them directly,’ according
to the ILO Convention on Indigenous and Tribal Peoples (ILO 1989).
Indigenous peoples were also recognized at the 2002 World Summit on
Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, which built on the recognition
ten years earlier at the Rio de Janeiro UN Conference on Environment and
Development, known as the Earth Summit. Agenda 21, a product of the Earth
Summit, recognized that Indigenous peoples have a historical relationship
with their lands and have developed a holistic knowledge of these lands and
the natural environment. It recognised the inter-relationship between the environment
and its sustainable development and the cultural, social, economic
and physical well-being of Indigenous peoples.
Attempts to forge an international declaration dedicated specifically to the
rights of Indigenous peoples have not yet succeeded. However, a draft declaration
contains articles of particular relevance to the health sector – articles 23
and 24 establish Indigenous peoples’ rights to traditional medicine and health
Indigenous peoples
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