Rights of Indigenous Peoples

The rights of indigenous peoples (or indigenous rights) are those rights aspired to, claimed, held, exercised, or enforced by or on behalf of the indigenous peoples of the world (Connolly 2009). The United Nations has estimated the worldwide population of indigenous people at around 370 million, inhabiting 90 countries across all the regions of the world (United Nations 2009). In 2007, the UN General Assembly adopted the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. This agreement codified many of the rights asserted by the world's indigenous groups over the past few decades and offered those groups a clear and authoritative moral and legal basis upon which to pursue their ongoing struggle for recognition and justice (United Nations 2008; see Identity, Politics of; Recognition; Reconciliation). The promulgation of the Declaration also signaled the increased importance within national and international moral, political, and legal discourse of issues surrounding the status and needs of indigenous peoples