Indigenous Rights and Universal Periodic Review: A Confluence of Human Rights and Environmental Issues

The scale and complexity of the issues posed by the Anthropocene requires resolution through the involvement of science with alternative knowledge systems. Indigenous peoples provide a rich source of alternative knowledge systems. The Universal Periodic Review (UPR) mechanism of the United Nations (UN) Human Rights Council (HRC) offers a way of involving indigenous perspectives into global discourses about the Anthropocene. UPR subjects each UN member state to a periodically scheduled review of its human rights record, but does so by welcoming reports from non-state sources including indigenous peoples. Indigenous use of UPR is welcomed by the UN HRC and encouraged by the International Working Group on Indigenous Affairs. While the UPR is ostensibly a component of the UN human rights system, it has become an inclusive process accommodating human rights issues arising from a broad array of subjects, including environmental problems. This means that the UPR allows indigenous peoples to take local environmental problems to an international level.