Human Rights Law Research in the Context of Indigenous Rights. From Classroom to Courtroom

Contents

1. Introduction

2 Why Research?
2.1 Curiosity
2.2 The Case for Litigation

3 International Human Rights Law and Indigenous Peoples
3.1 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights
3.2 Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination
3.3 European Convention on Human Rights
3.4 Human Rights beyond Human Rights Law
3.5 Free, Prior and Informed Consent

4 Practical Tips for Human Rights Research
4.1 Methodology
4.2 Where to Find Information

5 Ethics of Research on Indigenous Issues

6 Concluding Remarks

Sources

Human Rights Law Research in the Context of Indigenous Rights:

From Classroom to Courtroom ^[1]

Including Practical Tips on Researching International Human Rights Law

Stefan Kirchner^[2]

1. Introduction

“Was hei ß t und zu welchem Ende studiert man Universalgeschichte?” (“What is and for which purpose does one study universal history?”) was the title of Friedrich Schiller ’s initial lecture in Jena on 26 May 1789. Not only was that still a fairly new approach to the study of history, not that dissimilar in fact to the modern understanding of indigenous rights in international law, it also set the tone for future academic discourses. Schiller drew a distinction between academia merely for the and the ability to see connections between different dimensions of the sciences. My presentation aims at you as young researchers and as future lawyers. Regardless of whether you engage in academic or in practical legal work, it is the latter, the ability to create and utilize connections, which will be required of you including in the field of human rights in general and especially in the field of indigenous rights because you will have to connect the concrete physical reality of the situation of indigenous peoples with the abstract law. Through your work, the abstract becomes concrete. What I will do in the next half hour is not simply to give you an overview over what indigenous rights actually means in the context of human rights, the time would be far too short for that, although we will look at a few examples. Rather, I want to take the opportunity to look with you at a number of facts which give you an idea as to why international human rights law matters in the discourse of human rights, which tools you need to study and what to do with it in the end.

In the last three years I have had the honor to chair the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Interest Group at the American Society of International Law in Washington D.C. This presentation has been inspired by practical experiences in this time. During this time I have worked with and consulted indigenous groups in Peru, Kenya, Canada, Japan and Sweden and I want to give future lawyers the skills to help indigenous peoples in their struggles through law, and specifically international human rights litigation, as a tool in the fight against oppression. Law matters in particular because it has been used for centuries as a tool of oppression. Litigation matters because it is a tool which has been used sometimes by indigenous peoples but which, at least to me as a lawyer and an outsider, seems to have a potential for making a greater impact in the future.

Indigenous rights are still hardly given the same attention as many other aspects of human rights. At the same time indigenous rights as a topic is often politicized and a significant amount of academic attention to the topic concerns the institutional or participatory level, for example the developments at the United Nations in the last decades.^[3] This is a question of status, a question which is termed in general public international law language of legal subjectivity.^[4] What I want to talk about are rights. Rights and status are interconnected issues but rights talk implies a more personal, more individual (but due to the collective dimension of the topic not really individualistic) perspective.

Questions of indigenous rights can be seen from several perspectives:

- as rights of a people under general Public International Law,^[5] which has implications for the definition of self-determination and its classification (as a subjective right or an objective legal concept), this perspective emphasizes the sovereignty of indigenous peoples and places them essentially on a similar level as other international legal actors, here you might want to think of the common Article 1 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights^[6] (ICCPR) and of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights^[7] (ICESCR) or - as human rights^[8] which which are dependent on membership in an indigenous people, think here for example of Article 27 ICCPR, such rights can be enjoyed both individually and collectively, the latter is important for indigenous rights which are enjoyed together with other members of the same indigenous group.

While our university is one of a few exceptions, indigenous rights as an academic field, despite being of global importance and despite the connections between different parts of the world, is very much a local affair - multi-local, or “glocal”,^[9] certainly, but essentially local. If you look where indigenous rights research is happening today, you will see that these locations are in geographic proximity to the home areas of indigenous peoples, be it in Lapland or in Hokkaido, in Canada or New Zealand and so on. There are a few notable exceptions, like Alexandra Xanthaki at Brunel, but you get the basic idea that this is something which needs a trigger to create interest. It is a bit like saying that the law of the sea would only be studied in universities which are located in port cities, which of course is not the case. Allow me to use an analogy from medicine to describe the kind of situation we have here: there is a problem (continued discrimination of indigenous peoples) and there is a cure or at least a medicine to deal with that problem (indigenous rights). If the number of patients is so small that pharmaceutical companies hardly reach economies of scale they will hardly generate enough income to cover their research and development costs. In medicine, such pharmaceuticals which deal with rare diseases are referred to as ‘orphan drugs’. Indigenous rights law may be important locally, but on a larger scale we have a similar situation. In many parts of the world, indigenous peoples are a small minority in the countries they live in. Their situation might be dire but their voice is not heard because they are few and that limits the interest of decision-makers on the political level. Said very abstractly, from a purely political perspective, a government that wants to have the support of the majority of voters will not take decisive actions in favor of a small minority if this is seen as leading to high costs and no return on investment. This is the same for different types of minorities and as a problem is hardly restricted to indigenous peoples alone. Only once the issue of the minority reaches the level of general interest, by using the language of law, is there a possibility to offset political costs. To use the medical analogy again, this is the situation the producers of an orphan drug find themselves in when they realize that the same drug, which has already been researched, produced and admitted to the market, can also be used for something else. In terms of politics, that is what happens when others take an interest in the situation and rights of the minority.

But there is no guarantee that this happens and as lawyers you cannot rely on shifting political attitudes alone. This is why we need to look at the second possible approach to such orphan diseases — and that is the question if there might already be a drug out there which is being used for something else already and which can be utilized to deal with this problem. And this is where general international human rights law comes in. Even without the ratification of treaties like ILO Convention 169 or a domestic implementation of UNDRIP do you already have legal tools at your disposal which can be used to further the cause of indigenous rights.

But we will not talk in detail about ILO169, UNDRIP or other specific indigenous rights instruments but about the classical instruments of international human rights law, hence just one aspect of how international human rights law can be utilized. This is not merely because of the recent decision, not to ratify ILO169 just yet. Rather, it is because you I want to show you that you can use legal tools which you are already familiar with in order to further the cause of indigenous rights.

At first sight this might seem counterintuitive because indigenous rights and human rights as legal disciplines not only overlap but they also have different functions. Human rights law protects individuals and groups against those who are more powerful, such as the state. Indigenous rights law overlaps with human rights but it goes beyond that to include not only questions of rights but also questions of status. In so far, indigenous rights law is not only a subset of human rights law but also an original subset of general Public International Law.

2 Why Research?

2.1 Curiosity

But what is the purpose of your research? Essentially, there are two chief purposes, which are not to be confused with Schiller ’s two approaches to academic research which I mentioned earlier: the search for knowledge and practical work. For lawyers, even the most abstract work can be utilized in the long run. You might not be able to see it the moment you do your research, but law needs researchers who look beyond the constraints of individual cases. Law needs you to think about problems which are still far from the courtrooms. Usually, lawmakers can only react to new situations by changing the law because law is society’s reaction to factual circumstances (and often it has been a bad idea for lawmakers to do things the other way around and to try to shape society through law). In international law, while there are examples for fast changes in the law, in general the process of lawmaking is fairly slow. This is even more so in the realm of human rights and it is no surprise that international human rights law is relying to a large degree on legal texts which are almost have a century old or even older. And this is not a bad thing. In other fields of law, a law which is fifty years old would be hopelessly outdated but in terms of universal human rights you want stability and legal certainty and the idea is to apply these rules to current situations. The European Court of Human Rights has explained this very well when it began (in the case of Tyrer v. United Kingdom^[10] ) to refer to the European Convention on Human Rights^[11] (ECHR) as a “living instrument”.^[12]

But there is also an important practical dimension to research. Ideally, research will inform decision-making processes on several levels. The additional knowledge you generate can be used to inform law-makers, and indeed Finland has a very strong tradition of involving outside^[13] academia in the run-up to parliamentary decisions and there seems to be at least some permeability between academia and public administration. This can lead to increasing awareness among decision-makers of indigenous rights issues but also of international human rights law in general on the national and subnational level. ILO 169 is a good example for this. Over the last decades, there has been a lot of research in Finland on this particular convention and this has contributed to making it impossible for decision-makers on the political level to ignore the issue. Taking this one step further, it can even increase respect for human rights on the global level because a state in which human rights play an important role on the domestic level is also more likely to speak out for human rights on an international level.^[14]

2.2 The Case for Litigation

But this is all very abstract — which is fine and which is something academics should feel comfortable with. But there is an other dimension to this and this is litigation for the defense of human rights. Litigation is very much at the core of the public image of the work of lawyers and even if many law students might not end up in a litigating role (which is hardly surprising given that only a small fraction of lawyers become asianajajat^[15] and that Finnish society is much less litigious than some other societies), litigation is an important way in which human rights are protected.

“There are numerous examples of attempts at indigenous litigation on the national and international levels, which made a significant difference for the situation of indigenous peoples, both the plaintiffs and in general.

A key case in which a general international human rights instrument was used for the purpose of protecting indigenous rights through litigation was the case of Awas Tigni v. Nicaragua^[16] before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights.^[17] In general, the American Convention on Human Rights^[18] (ACHR) might be perceived as being more relevant for indigenous rights than the European Convention on Human Rights^[19] (ECHR) but the latter human rights treaty has also been used by indigenous applicants on a number of occasions.^[20] In addition, cases have been brought under ILO Convention No. 169^[21] (ILO 169) and Article 24 of the Constitution^[22] of the ILO.^[23] It appears likely that the entry into force of the Optional Protocol^[24] to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights^[25] (ICESCR) will open an other avenue for indigenous litigants.^[26]

A key example for the impact litigation can have on the national level is the often cited case of Mabo v. Queensland (No. 2),^[27] which led to the abandonment of the concept of terra nullius in Australia,^[28] albeit without restoring full indigenous sovereignty.^[29] But also in the fight against extractive industries, litigation has proven useful. In the last years there have been cases against the oil industry in Colombia^[30] and against mining in Guatemala^[31] and as late as in the 1990s, the Nibutani Dam Case^[32] marked the first recognition of Japan’s indigenous Ainu population as being indigenous by a Japanese Court. In two cases concerning the mining company Goldcorp decided in 2014,^[33] plaintiffs in Guatemala^[34] and Chile^[35] were able to stop mining projects over insufficient involvement of indigenous peoples in the planning process. In cases decided in 2014^[36] and early 2015,^[37] courts in Australia transferred significant titles to territory - but not full ownership or sovereignty - to indigenous peoples. Norwegian courts have been taking indigenous customary law into account for some time now^[38] and these are just a few examples for domestic cases in which indigenous peoples used the courtroom in addition to activism.

On the international level, the ICCPR has been used numerous times by indigenous plaintiffs^[39] and there have been a few cases on indigenous issues before the European Court of Human Rights.^[40]

Although it has to be admitted that international law does not always match the expectations of indigenous peoples, these cases show that litigating on the international level or at least invoking international law before domestic judges can make provide a highly useful tool which should not be ignored. Litigation might be an alien concept for many (indigenous) cultures, but it is an important aspect of the global legal reality of today.”

But indigenous individuals can also matter beyond their group. By asserting your own rights (or the rights of your client) you can improve the situation for others around the world by contributing to a clarification of the law. One example for this is the case of Lovelace v. Canada.^[41] In this case, an indigenous woman raised the question of who is indigenous and implicitly the question which role the state can play in defining membership in indigenous communities. This is a question which is relevant in many indigenous communities and often the state is ignoring the remainder of indigenous sovereignty which rests in the ability to identify members. Rather than answering all questions, the decision in Lovelace has created many additional questions, for example with regard to the relationship between indigenous sovereignty and human rights. If indigenous sovereignty would be taken seriously by states, the case would not have been different. The dispute in Lovelace was essentially a public law dispute between Mrs Lovelace and her tribe. It is due to the destruction of indigenous sovereignty by nation states that such essential questions as to who is a member of an indigenous community actually are phrased in terms of legal conflicts between the state and the individual. Universal human rights obligations are also incumbent on indigenous peoples but indigenous peoples should have obligations because they have power with regard to individuals (after all, this is what human rights are about), not because obligations are imposed on them by the states.

But many if not most indigenous peoples today lack the legal infrastructure to solve disputes. States have taken so much power away from indigenous peoples that they have not only lost their land and culture but often also their structures of self-governance. This makes it even more necessary for indigenous rights activists to take into account litigation against states and international law obligations of states as one tool to fight injustice. One might think that court decisions are only relevant for the parties in question.^[42] From a purely litigative perspective, this is certainly often the case as court decisions usually only have effect inter partes. Especially in the continental legal tradition, which has had a significant influence on the Nordic legal systems, this view is understandable. But when it comes to international human rights law, including the European Convention on Human Rights, the importance of precedent must not be underestimated. One case can fundamentally change the interpretation of the law. Indeed, there might be cases in which research done years ago on an abstract question, presenting a creative alternative to a prevailing interpretation of an existing norm, maybe published and forgotten, a judge’s dissenting opinion, a little article in a rarely read law journal, might be enough to lead to a change in thought. Law often changes slowly, but at times it can change quickly, rapidly even. Here research has a twofold function. On one hand is litigation an important tool for activists^[43] and targeted research is thus important. On the other hand, and here your contribution as doctoral students comes in, can your work contribute to the way decision makers think about the issues which you are researching. And they should. After all, you are supposed to be the expert on your topic — no matter how small it is. This idea is not from me but from somebody who sells many more books than most academic writers will hope to do: in the 1970s Umberto Eco wrote a wonderful book entitled “Como si fa una tesi di laurea”, essentially explaining how to do research. Many of the technical aspects have of course been superseded since then, but a lot of the basic ideas remain universally valid. In particular he urges the researcher to become an expert in his or her field.^[44]

[...]

^[1] This text is the expanded version of a lecture given to doctoral students on 26 March 2015 at the University of Lapland in the context of a seminar on indigenous issues organized by the University of Lapland in Rovaniemi and the University of Oulu. The style of the presentation has been maintained for this article.

^[2] Dr., MJI, University Lecturer for Fundamental and Human Rights, with Special Focus on Indigenous Rights, University of Lapland, Faculty of Law, Rovaniemi, Finland; Senior Researcher for Minority Rights, Vytautas Magnus University, Faculty of Law, Kaunas, Lithuania; Rechtsanwalt (admitted to the bar in Germany). Email: stefan.kirchner@humanrightslawyer.eu.

^[3] S. James Anaya, International Human Rights and Indigenous Peoples, 1st ed., Aspen Publishers, New York (2009), pp. 17 et seq.

^[4] On the international legal subjectivity of indigenous peoples see Katja Göcke, Völkerrechtssubjektivität indigener Völker. Historische Grundlagen und neue Tendenzen in der völkerrechtlichen Praxis, in: Jelena Bäumler / Cindy Daase / Christian Schliemann / Dominik Steiger (eds.), Akteure in Krieg und Frieden, 1st ed., Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen (2010), pp. 167-183, at pp. 173 et seq. While G ö cke, despite emphasis on recent developments (ibid.), stays within the framework provided by classical Public International Law and sees a partial legal subjectivity of indigenous peoples (ibid., p. 173), it can also be argued that there is a right to sustainable livelihood under Article 1 (2) ICCPR which, in case of grave threats to the continued existence of a people - in analogy to the Quebec precedent (Supreme Court of Canada, Reference re: Secession of Quebec, [1998] 2 S.C.R. 217 (Canada)), can lead to a a resurfacing of the original indigenous sovereignty which is currently suppressed by the continued colonial situation caused by the dominance of nation states (Stefan Kirchner, Impacts of Globalization on Subjects of International Law: Indigenous Sovereignty Rediscovered, forthcoming 2016), for example in the context of denied access to clean water (ibid.). It is interesting to note that the Sámi have achieved a significant level of involvement in national and international fora despite the fact that they have ceased to be the majority in their homeland already early in the 12th century AD (Neil Kent, The Sámi Peoples of the North - A Social and Cultural History, 1st ed., Hurst & Company, London (2014), p. 23).

^[5] See Alexandra Xanthaki, Indigenous Rights and United Nations Standards - Self-Determination, Culture and Land, 1st ed., Cambridge University Press, Cambridge (2007), pp. 131 et seq.

^[6] 999 United Nations Treaty Series, pp. 171 et seq., available online at <https://treaties.un.org/doc/Publication/UNTS/Volume%20999/v999.pdf> (last visited 20 April 2015).

^[7] 993 United Nations Treaty Series, pp. 3 et seq., available online at <https://treaties.un.org/doc/Publication/UNTS/Volume%20993/v993.pdf> (last visited 20 April 2015).

^[8] For an introductory view on indigenous rights from the perspective of international human rights law see Michael Haas, International Human Rights - A Comprehensive Introduction, 1st ed., Routledge, Abingdon (2008), pp. 123 et seq.; Rhona K. M. Smith, Textbook on International Human Rights, 6th ed., Oxford University Press, Oxford (2014), pp. 345 et seq.; Antje Neumann, The recognition of indigenous peoples’ rights in the context of area protection and management in the Arctic, 1st ed., Grin, Munich (2010), pp. 38 et seq.

^[9] Henri Favre, El movimiento indianista: un fenómeno “glocal”, in: Valérie Robin Azevedo / Carmen Salazar-Soler (eds.), El regreso de lo indigena - Retos, problemas y perspectivas, 1st ed., Instituto Francés de Estudios Andinos, Lima (2009), pp. 29-37, at p. 30. Similarly, the Sámi people have been described as “hav[ing] become a global people with a global perspective” (Neil Kent, The Sámi Peoples of the North - A Social and Cultural History, 1st ed., Hurst & Company, London (2014), p. 256 and p. 261).

^[10] European Court of Human Rights, Tyrer v. United Kingdom, Application No. 5856/72, Judgment of 25 April 1978.

^[11] European Treaty Series No. 5, available online at <http://www.echr.coe.int/Documents/Convention_ENG.pdf> (last visited 20 April 2015).

^[12] Ibid., para. 31.

^[13] A different model is pursued e.g. in Germany where the Federal Parliament employs a research staff covering different academic fields.

^[14] Part 2.2 is based on research undertaken for my forthcoming article “The Case for International Human Rights Litigation and the Duty to Obtain Indigenous Peoples’ Free, Prior and Informed Consent as a Rule of Customary International Law”.

^[15] On the system of legal professions and their regulation in Finland see in more detail Stefan Kirchner, Legal Ethics in Finland: Two Codes of Conduct for a Two Class Legal Practice System, in: 1 Indonesian Journal of International and Comparative Law (2014), pp. 992-1010.

^[16] Inter-American Court of Human Rights, Case of the Mayagna (Sumo) Awas Tingni Community v. Nicaragua, Judgment of 31 August 2001, <http://www.corteidh.or.cr/docs/casos/articulos/seriec_79_ing.pdf>, last accessed 28 January 2015.

^[17] On the importance of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights for the development of indigenous rights see Thomas K. Antkowiak, Rights, Resources and Rhetoric: Indigenous Peoples and the Inter-American Court, in: 35 University of Pennsylvania Journal of International Law (2013), pp. 113-187, available online at <https://www.law.upenn.edu/live/files/2889-antkowiak35upajintll1132013>, last accessed 28 January 2015.

^[18] American Convention on Human Rights, available online at <http://www.oas.org/dil/treaties_B-32_American_Convention_on_Human_Rights.pdf>, last accessed 28 January 2015.

^[19] Convention on the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, available online at <http://www.echr.coe.int/Documents/Convention_ENG.pdf>, last accessed 28 January 2015.

^[20] See Timo Koivurova, Jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights Regarding Indigenous Peoples: Retrospects and Prospects, in: 18 International Journal on Minority and Group Rights (2011), pp. 1-37, available online at <http://www.arcticcentre.org/loader.aspx?id=a9d1b5b3-d94b-4a94-85b5-0118a54129e0>, last accessed 28 January 2015.

^[21] Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention (ILO Convention No. 169), available online at < http://www.ilo.org/dyn/normlex/en/f?p=NORMLEXPUB:12100:0::NO::P12100_ILO_CODE:C169>, last accessed 28 January 2015.

^[22] Constitution of the International Labour Organisation, available online at <http://www.ilo.org/public/english/bureau/leg/download/constitution.pdf>, last accessed 28 January 2015.

^[23] On the procedure under ILO 169 see Tanja Joona, ILO Convention No. 169 in a Nordic Context with Comparative Analysis: An Interdisciplinary Approach, 1st ed., Lapland University Press, Rovaniemi (2012), at pp. 117 et seq. and S. James Anaya, International Human Rights and Indigenous Peoples, 1st ed., Aspen Publishers, New York (2009), at pp. 145 et seq.

^[24] Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, available online at <http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/HRBodies/CESCR/OProtocol_en.pdf>, last accessed 28 January 2015.

^[25] International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, available online at <http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/ProfessionalInterest/cescr.pdf>, last accessed 28 January 2015.

^[26] Stefan Kirchner, Lis alibi pendens in International Human Rights Litigation, forthcoming.

^[27] High Court of Australia, Mabo v Queensland [No 2], Judgment of 3 June 1992, (1992) 175 CLR 1.

^[28] Katja Göcke, Völkerrechtssubjektivität indigener Völker. Historische Grundlagen und neue Tendenzen in der völkerrechtlichen Praxis, in: Jelena Bäumler / Cindy Daase / Christian Schliemann / Dominik Steiger (eds.), Akteure in Krieg und Frieden, 1st ed., Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen (2010), pp. 167-183, at p. 177.

^[29] Ibid .

^[30] Rachel Sieder, ‘Emancipation’ or ‘regulation’? Law, globalization and indigenous peoples’ rights in post-war Guatemala, in: 40 Economy and Society (2011), pp. 239-265, at p. 258.

^[31] Ibid., at pp. 254 et seq.

^[32] Sapporo District Court, Kayano et al. v. Hokkaido Expropriation Committee, Judgment of 27 March 1997, 38 International Legal Materials 394 (1999).

^[33] See Stefan Kirchner, Recent Developments concerning Indigenous Rights (January-October 2014): Consultation and Compensation in Focus, in: American Society of International Law Rights of Indigenous Peoples Interest Group Newsletter, October 2014, p. 2.

^[34] Christin Sandberg, Guatemalan Court Rules in Favor of Indigenous People Over Goldcorp Mining in Sipacapa, in: Upside Down World, 20 July 2014, available online at <http://upsidedownworld.org/main/guatemala-archives-33/4963-guatemalan-court-rules-in-favor-of-indigenous-people-over-goldcorp-mining-in-sipacapa>, last accessed 28 January 2015.

^[35] Associated Press, Chile’s top court halts Goldcorp’s El Morro mine, in: The Globe and Mail, 7 October 2014, available online at <http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/industry-news/energy-and-resources/chiles-top-court-halts-goldcorps-el-morro-mine/article20965256/>, last accessed 28 January 2015.

^[36] Jocelyn Watts, Butchulla granted native title rights on Fraser Island, in: Fraser Coast Chronicle, 24 October 2014, available online at <http://www.frasercoastchronicle.com.au/news/federal-court-determine-butchulla-native-title-cla/2430411/>, last accessed 28 January 2015.

^[37] Cameron England, Barngarla native title claim over much of Eyre Peninsula upheld, in: The Advertiser, 22 January 2015, available online at <http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/south-australia/barngarla-native-title-claim-over-much-of-eyre-peninsula-upheld/story-fni6uo1m-1227193094232?nk=ad69354791d8a6537f60142c3096cfc9>, last accessed 28 January 2015.

^[38] Øyvind Ravna, The legal Protection of the Rights and Culture of Indigenous Sámi People in Norway, in: 11 Journal of Siberian Federal University. Humanities & Social Sciences (2013), pp. 1575-1591, available online at <http://elib.sfu-kras.ru/bitstream/2311/10098/1/02_Ravna.pdf>, last accessed 28 January 2015, at pp. 1586 et seq.

^[39] For an overview see S. James Anaya, International Human Rights and Indigenous Peoples, 1st ed., Aspen Publishers, New York (2009), pp. 186 et seq.

^[40] See Timo Koivurova, Jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights Regarding Indigenous Peoples: Retrospects and Prospects, in: 18 International Journal on Minority and Group Rights (2011), pp. 1-37, available online at <http://www.arcticcentre.org/loader.aspx?id=a9d1b5b3-d94b-4a94-85b5-0118a54129e0>, last accessed 28 January 2015.

^[41] Human Rights Committee, Sandra Lovelace v. Canada, Communication No. R.6/24, Decision of 30 July 1981, U.N. Doc. Supp. No. 40 (A/36/40) at 166 (1981), available online at <http://www1.umn.edu/humanrts/undocs/session36/6-24.htm>, last accessed 28 January 2015.

^[42] Ibid .

^[43] Ibid .

^[44] The book was first published in Italian in 1977. A first English version of the text was published a few days after the presentation on which this text is based was given: Umberto Eco, How to Write a Thesis, 1st (English) ed., MIT Press, Cambridge (2015).