Shelagh Levangie

Globalized Native Politics: Negotiating the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Shelagh Levangie

Revision with unchanged content. For over twenty years, UN member states met with Indigenous representatives from around the world to negotiate the content of a proposed Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. In this book, Shelagh Levangie explores and analyses the proceedings of the eighth session of the United Nations Working Group on the Drafted Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Held at the United Nations headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland in 2002, the eighth session is representative of the meetings that occurred over the twenty-two years the Declaration was negotiated. Levangie highlights the complexities of the Working Group discussions and the issues they raised for Indigenous representatives and UN member states focusing on its meaning and significance for the Canadian government. An in-depth examination of the content of the Draft Declaration and the process by which it was discussed exposes the conflicting values and assumptions that existed between the Indigenous representatives and government delegates. New political opportunities and relationships were created and contested across national and international boundaries as Indigenous Peoples sought recognition of their human rights and negotiated a place within the world?s political process. Epilogue by Kenneth Deer