Today two reports were presented and discussed under Item 5 of the Sub-Commission's agenda. The Working Group on Transnational Corporations held its final meeting of this session in the afternoon. The Sub-Commission Chairman and Bureau met with NGOs over the lunch period (that's the Chairman sitting in the photo to the right), and we saw some fireworks over the lake in the evening, to mark the beginning of the Fete de Geneve which will now run for 10 days.
Also, the final Sub-Commission member arrived today, Ms. Florizelle O'Connor, from Jamaica.
Mrs. Daes is a well respected prior member of the Sub-Commission (from Greece) who has been closely associated with indigenous peoples projects in the United Nations for many years. She chaired the Working Group on Indigenous Populations for most of its 22 year existence. She had been asked to author a 2-year study on sovereignty over land and natural resources with the final report issued this year. (E/CN.4/2004/Sub.2/30)
The report is considered pathbreaking in many respects, as it attempts to codify and describe the nature of indigenous peoples' relationship to their lands and natural resources. All who commented admitted Mrs. Daes had built a careful, clear and well documented argument for her conclusions. The notion of "permanent sovereignty" in this context makes some governments nervous, as well as several members of the Sub-Commission. However, all members who commented praised Mrs. Daes' work and said that, while they were hesitant to associate the term "sovereignty" with this type of control over land and resources, they believed Mrs. Daes was correct in the way she described the inalienable ownership rights which indigenous peoples have in such situations.
In an interesting comment seemingly intended to build a good record for Mrs. Daes' conclusions, Mr. Kartashkin, the Russian expert on the Sub-Commission, went further and said that he fully agreed with Mrs. Daes' conclusions, including her description of sovereignty rights, and that in his view a new norm was emerging by customary state practice and policies in this field. This right of sovereignty was a collective right, not an individual right, and among other things required "free, prior and informed" consent of the legitimate representative of an indigenous group for any transfer or waiver of property rights to be valid.
It will be interesting to follow the progress of this issue in the Sub-Commission and beyond. Mrs. Daes' final report recommends a new ad hoc committee be established at the Commission level to study this issue further, and that workshops be organized to continue to seek input from scholars, experts and indigenous peoples' representatives.
This year marks the 10th year of the proceedings of the Working Group on Minorities. From its inception the working group has been considered by many a model of how a working group can be organized. The chairman of the group, Asbjorn Eide, expert from Norway, retired last year from the Sub-Commission. The working group held its final session under his chairmanship on March 1-5, 2004, just before the new Sub-Commission elections were held.
One of the documents presented at the working group this year was a ten year study and analysis of the working group's activities, by Professor Tom Hadden of the Human Rights Centre, Queen's University, Belfast (E/CN.4/Sub.2/AC.5/2004/WP.3).
The working group has continued to do pathbreaking and influential work in the field of minority rights, including this year a new custom of adopting some general recommendations at the end of their report which will serve as interpretative guidance on some of the topics that have been studied by the group over the years. It is apparently intended that the working group will continue this practice in future years building up over time a kind of "jurisprudence" of minority rights law.
An important paper on "minorities and self determination" was also discussed at the working group, authored by one of its members, Mr. Jose Bengoa, expert from Chile.
Mr. Kartashkin, expert from the Russian Federation, also indicated in remarks on the report that he would pursue keeping David Weissbrodt's study on the rights of non-citizens alive in this working group, since it relates to the issue of minorities and stateless individuals and would have continuing relevance to the group's work.
In a pattern that has been repeating from prior years, the Working Group also visited a country this year and filed a report as an addendum to their main report. They visited Finland in January 2004. As in prior years the report both points out constructive practices and policies in the country, as well as some recommendations for further improvements. Finland has some semi-autonomous islands in the Aland province where the Swedish-speaking minority enjoys a degree of self-government. There are also several minority populations settled in Helsinki. The working group recommends in its report on the visit to Finland that more attention also be paid to the growing Russian-speaking minority in the country.
This afternoon the Working Group on Transnational Corporations met for its second and last public meeting of the session. Minnesota Advocates presented some extemporaneous remarks on the draft norms adopted last year. A summary of our statement is included in the speeches page on this website.
The Working Group seems to be in a deadlock as to whether to continue or not as a sessional group next year. Some members favored continuing. Others felt that the work left to be done is quite limited now that the norms have been adopted and the Commission has instructed the Sub-Commission not to pursue them further. Since the tradition of the working group has always been to reach consensus it will be interesting to see by the end of the session whether consensus can be achieved this year.
We saw the "one-legged" peacock again this year on the UN grounds, apparently well fed and well cared for, despite his deformed or injured left leg. And the camera jiggled a bit but you can get some sense in the photo to the bottom right of the fireworks display over the lake in the evening, as the 10 day festival known as the Fete de Geneve got underway.
