New 'social contracts' on Indigenous sovereignty required internationally, say UN panellists

Panellists said governments need to reconsider the "social contracts" they are a part of and their impact on Indigenous Peoples at an event marking the United Nations International Day of the World's Indigenous Peoples on Monday.

The day is celebrated Aug. 9, the date of the inaugural session of the Working Group on Indigenous Populations at the United Nations in 1982.

Monday's virtual Q&A session was hosted by the UN Secretariat of the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues. 

"The term social contract [refers to] the implicit consent that individuals grant to be governed as part of a society and to have their absolute freedom limited," said panellist James Anaya, who served as UN Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples from 2008-2014.

"I think that most Indigenous Peoples . . .  haven't fully consented to the social orders and or governmental authority of the states that have been thrust upon them."

Anaya said today's interpretations of these social contracts generally inform social and political behaviours and are therefore at the root of inequalities and marginalization that Indigenous Peoples face. 

"I think establishing a new social contract would be a remedy to the lack of initial consent to be governed by the states that have grown up around them and would entail the construction of a new social order based on consensus and respect for those rights," Anaya said during the virtual session. 

Panelist María Fernanda Espinosa Garcés, a former government minister in Ecuador, said the international implementation of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) could serve as a suitable foundation for social contracts. 

Espinosa Garcés said international responses to the coronavirus pandemic have magnified existing inequalities. Responses can be "insufficient because of greed, because of lack of generosity, because of lack of co-operation," she said.

"This crisis, I think, provides us an opportunity to to really acknowledge that ourworld is dysfunctional, that we need to reinvent ourselves, that we need to redesign our democratic institutions," she said.

"We need to think about what the rule of law means, what Indigenous Peoples' participation means, what is prior informed consent . . .  in the crafting of these new social contracts."

Constructing a Canadian identity

David Geary, a mixed-heritage Māori kaiako (teacher, in the Māori language) in the Indigenous Digital Filmmaking program at Capilano University in B.C., said he attended the session because he has an interest in the UN's initiatives around global Indigenous affairs.

"I'm always hungry to hear and listen and witness, and I brought UNDRIP into our fine and applied arts faculty at Capilano University," Geary said. 

"The panel talked about the declaration instead being used sometimes as a decoration, so I'm always interested in learning who took it up, who says they took it up and what they're actually doing. What are their actions?" 

Geary moved to Canada from Aotearoa/New Zealand in the early 2000s and became a Canadian citizen in 2008. Geary said the citizenship process gave him a unique perspective on Canada's complex national identity and helped him to rethink his own social contract.

"It's a totally constructed identity in some ways," he said.

"I can construct my Canadian identity, so what does that mean and what have I agreed to? If I'm going to call myself a Canadian, do I recognize the borders? The idea is that this is all Indigenous land and the countries are big colonial constructions. The contract for me is to think more deeply and powerfully and to look for these other perspectives."

He said he thinks new social contracts need to be born from better education about Indigenous Peoples and perspectives. 

"In that 'contract' idea, I wonder what are the 'clauses' in what you agree to?" he said.

"One of them is to actually learn about the people, or to learn a bit of their language, or taking actions to be a good ally . . . I feel like those things are part of what I consider to be the contract."