The Japanese Journal of American Studies, No. 23 (2012)

Searching for Indigenous Alliances:
International NGOs of the United States
and Canada in the 1970s

Ayako UCHIDA*INTRODUCTION
On September 13, 2007, the United Nations General Assembly adopted
the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. This declaration
speciﬁes that indigenous peoples have rights to self-determination, traditional lands and territories, natural resources and sacred sites, and traditional languages and customs. While it is a nonbinding human rights
instrument, countries are expected to follow these rules in their relations
with indigenous individuals and peoples. Although the United States,
Canada, Australia, and New Zealand voted against the passage of thisdeclaration, they changed from opposition to support within a few years.
President Barack Obama announced U.S. support for the declaration on
December 16, 2010.1
The UN declaration marks the culmination of efforts by indigenous
peoples and their supporters during the three decades previous to passage. In the 1960s and 1970s Native Americans and Native Canadianssought recognition of self-determination and cultural identity frommainstream society and their governments. The resurgence of theiractivism was related to the development of the human rights regime and*Associate Professor, Nagoya University

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postcolonial movements in the Third World after World War II. During
the 1970s these movements were internationalized, and consequently in1982 the Working Group on Indigenous Populations (WGIP) was established within the UN Sub-Commission on the Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities. Since then indigenous peoples in theworld have participated in an extensive discussion of their rights to improve how they are treated under international law.
Recent decades have witnessed an increased interest in the studies ofinternational movements and the human rights of indigenous peoples. In
examining modern Native American political history within an international context, Rosier has provided an important perspective on how
the Cold War and global decolonization movements inﬂuenced Native
American movements. Niezen explored the emergence of the concept“indigenous peoples” with the development of the universal humanrights regime, especially since the 1950s. He discussed how indigenous
peoples strove for greater recognition of collective rights, especially theirrights to self-determination. In 2010 Engle analyzed the changing strategy in the transnational indigenous movement of the Americas, fromcalls for self-determination in the 1970s and 1980s to the use of humanrights to protect cultures in the 1990s.2
Nevertheless, these studies have not thoroughly investigated the rootsof international indigenous nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) inthe development of the movement. Why and how did Native Americans
and Native Canadians start their international movements in the 1970s?
What roles did they play and what possibilities as well as limitations
were seen? In this essay I ﬁrst explore the formation of two pioneer organizations of indigenous peoples: the International Indian Treaty Council(IITC), based in the United States, and the World Council of Indigenous
Peoples (WCIP), based in Canada. Then I focus on the 1977 International
NGO Conference on Discrimination against Indigenous Populations in
the Americas, held in Geneva. The experiences of these organizations
and conference have been recorded in their reports and periodicals aswell as participants’ memoirs. Through the analysis of the archival records and published materials collected in both the United States andCanada,3 the historical signiﬁcance of these indigenous movements in
the international context can be considered.

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I.

211

THE HUMAN RIGHTS REGIME AND INDIGENOUS PEOPLES

Although the United States awarded citizenship to indigenous peoples
in 1924, certain tribes and individuals resisted being incorporated into
nationhood. In Canada the Iroquois (Cayuga) patriot Deskaheh traveledto Geneva in 1923 to appeal for the protection of his people’s sovereignty
to the League of Nations through the help of the Netherlands. However,
his attempt proved to be in vain, and Deskaheh was not allowed to return
to his homeland in Canada. Even after that, indigenous leaders tried toappeal for their rights—to the League of Nations in 1926, and to the UN
in 1947.4
The creation of an international law of human rights and decolonization was a signiﬁcant innovation in postwar international law. After
World War II, the UN developed a new world order based on a humanrights regime through the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in1948 and two basic human rights treaties in 1966: the International
Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant
on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. Although article 27 of theInternational Covenant on Civil and Political Rights pertained to minorities, it applied to the rights of individuals who were members of ethnic,
religious, or linguistic minorities. In 1957 the International Labour Organization (ILO) established the Indigenous and Tribal Populations
Convention (No. 107) to recognize and protect the rights of indigenous
peoples. It reﬂected an integrationist approach that was common at thetime. On the other hand, although a law on decolonization was codiﬁed
in a declaration of the UN General Assembly in 1960, this “self-determination” as decolonization did not apply to internal collectives basedon the “blue water” or “salt water” thesis.5 Thus these instruments generally avoided issues of minority rights as collectives. The “liberal assimilation strain of thinking” assumed that indigenous members or tribes
would attain equality and self-government through assimilation andrights of full citizenship. With legacies of colonization, the notion ofhuman rights was based on universalism and integrationism.6
In the mid-1960s Augusto Willemsen Diaz, a lawyer from Guatemala,discussed the problems of racial discrimination against indigenous peoples at the UN. A separate study on them was also recommended in a1970 interim report on racial discrimination. As a result, in 1971 the“Study of the Problem of Discrimination against Indigenous Populations” was commissioned by the UN Sub-Commission on the Prevention

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of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities. Although the deﬁnitionof “indigenous populations” would be often revised later,7 the Sub-Commission in its preliminary report of 1972 deﬁned them as
the existing descendants of the people who inhabited the present territory ofa country wholly or partially at the time when persons of a different cultureor ethnic origin arrived there from other parts of the world, overcame them,by conquest, settlement or other means, reduced them to a non-dominant orcolonial condition; who today live more in conformity with their particularsocial, economic and cultural customs of traditions than with the institutionsof the country of which they now form part, under a state structure which
incorporates mainly national, social and cultural characteristics of other segments of the populations which are predominant.8

A new international concern with indigenous peoples was developing at
this time. Discrimination and genocide of the indigenous peoples inSouth America were matters of special concern in the UN and the international community. At the end of the 1960s, leading support organizations such as the International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs(IWGIA), based in Copenhagen, and Survival International, based in
London, were formed. At a symposium about South America in 1971, aground-breaking decolonizing statement, the Declaration of Barbados,
was produced, sponsored by the Program to Combat Racism of theWorld Council of Churches.
After the UN declared the years 1973–82 the Decade for Action to
Combat Racism and Racial Discrimination, a subcommittee on Racism,
Racial Discrimination, Apartheid and Decolonization was establishedunder the Special NGO Committee on Human Rights. It organized aseries of conferences on racism and racial discrimination, including the1977 International NGO Conference on Discrimination against Indigenous Populations in the Americas, which will be discussed later.
Thus, indigenous peoples had a signiﬁcant opportunity to be represented in the UN, though the NGOs were required to have ofﬁcial recognition and consultative status under the Economic and Social Council of
the UN (ECOSOC). Two groups played key roles in the development of
the international indigenous movement at the time: the IITC in the Unites
States and the WCIP in Canada.

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II.

213

THE INTERNATIONAL INDIAN TREATY COUNCIL (IITC)

In the 1960s and 1970s, Native American movements commonly representing themselves as “Red Power” emerged with other social typesof activism. After World War II, the U.S. government campaigned for a“termination” policy to eliminate Indian reservations and federal trusteeship to assimilate American Indians into mainstream society. As a result,many Indian tribes engaged in a domestic “cold war” with the federal
government while the United States waged the Cold War abroad.9
The resurgence of Native American movements in the United States
and Canada was often based on the existence of treaties that their ancestors had entered into with former colonial powers and with settlers.
“Fish-ins” were staged in support of treaty-protected ﬁshing rights oftribes in the Paciﬁc Northwest beginning in 1964. They borrowed thestrategy of “sit-ins” from the Black Power movement. The American
Indian Movement (AIM), which was established in Minneapolis in 1968,
was at the center of much of the pan-Indian political activism during thisperiod. Especially, the 1970s saw a series of signiﬁcant incidents: theAlcatraz Occupation (1969–71), the Trail of Broken Treaties march on
Washington (1972), the Wounded Knee Occupation (1973), and theLongest Walk to Washington (1978), all of which received international
attention. Third World independence movements and the ideals of selfdetermination inﬂuenced these protests and ethnic nationalism in Red
Power movements.10
After these incidents, the U.S. government established a “self-determination” policy by the middle of the 1970s. President Richard Nixon
set tribal self-determination as the goal of his administration by abolishing the termination policy. In 1975 the Indian Self-Determination and
Education Assistance Act was enacted as one of a series of laws designed
to improve the lot of tribal nations and Indians. “Self-determination” inthis law meant autonomy in managing and implementing the federal programs on the reservations. On the other hand, preservation of treaty rights
was most important for Native Americans along with consultation in policymaking and economic self-sufﬁciency. Treaty rights and the trust
status of Indian land were the foundations of tribal sovereignty.11 While
non-native backlash increased domestically, it was important to take astrategic approach to spread an understanding of their cause. Thus Native
American activists attempted to appeal for their rights to the humanrights regime at the international level.

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Jimmie Durham, a Cherokee returnee from Geneva, became a key person in developing an international indigenous network and organizing
conferences. Durham was born in Nevada County, Arkansas in 1940 andgrew up in Texas, Louisiana, and Oklahoma. After leaving home at sixteen, he worked on farms and became a member of the Native American
Church. He served in North and South Vietnam as a soldier in the Marine
Corps, and after returning to Austin, he studied at the University of Texas
in the late 1960s.12
In 1968 Durham visited Geneva to meet a friend and stayed there while
his wife worked for the World Council of Churches in Geneva. During
the late 1960s and early 1970s decolonization was a signiﬁcant issue in
Geneva, and a number of the African liberation leaders went there topresent their cases at the UN. Most important for Durham, a series ofcritical incidents concerning American Indians occurred at home. He
planned a conference on the indigenous peoples of the Americas to beheld at UN ofﬁces in Geneva and sponsored by some major international
NGOs.13 When he returned to the United States at the time of the Wounded
Knee occupation in 1973, Durham met with AIM leaders to propose aninternational project.
Thus, in June 1974, a year after the Wounded Knee occupation, the IITC
was established by AIM at a mass gathering in Wakpala on the Standing
Rock Sioux Reservation, South Dakota. Representatives from 97 tribesin the United States and Canada, more than 5,000 people, joined the conference. Almost every traditionalist Sioux leader from 14 U.S. Siouxreservations and from Canada participated. Delegates from Germany,
England, France, and Italy were also present.
The aim of this conference was to discuss the strategy of hundreds oftreaties between the tribes and the United States in the past. In each section, about 35 traditionalists of the tribes and seven specialists in U.S.
and international law made speeches. The representatives of Sioux tribes
discussed the issue of the Black Hills in South Dakota. The Sioux had
long claimed the Black Hills based on the Treaty of Fort Laramie in1868.14 As a result of the conference, the IITC was ofﬁcially establishedto get recognition in the UN. The IITC symbol of the sacred pipe uniting the hemisphere was chosen by elders and represented the common
bonds of all indigenous peoples: spirituality, respect for traditional cultures, and ties to the land.15 As demonstrated in its name, “International
Indian Treaty Council,” Pan-Indianism was an original slogan of theorganization.

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For the following six years the IITC was headed by Durham, with
Russell Means, an AIM leader, as the spokesperson. The ofﬁces in New
York and Geneva represented the organization at the UN. The IITC
aimed to build international cooperation and a network for promoting
the rights of indigenous peoples in the Americas. Its periodical, Treaty
Council News, called for participation and ﬁnancial donations to sustain
the movement. The IITC was granted consultative status as a nongovernmental organization of indigenous peoples by ECOSOC in 1977.
Durham tried to pass resolutions for indigenous rights through the
Human Rights Commission and Decolonization Committee. The IITC
often acted for speciﬁc purposes, and Durham once said, “We can’t trust
any single country to give us a fair deal.” Although it inherited the political culture of AIM, many members of which were involved, the IITC
was a separate organization.16
After its establishment in 1974, the IITC held conferences in different
areas or Indian country through the years. The second conference washeld in 1976 at Greenwood on the Yankton Reservation in South Dakota.
More than 500 indigenous people attended.17 The Sioux were from six
local families, and most participants came from other states in the UnitedStates and Canada. Although the number of participants had decreased
compared to the ﬁrst conference, there were representatives from 90
tribes in North America, Australia, Zimbabwe, and Puerto Rico. They
discussed various problems that indigenous peoples were facing in eachcountry and considered the strategies needed to solve them.18
In New York, Durham tried to get the UN to sponsor the International
NGO Conference on Indigenous Populations of the Americas in 1977.
Durham and Means contacted each country’s embassy to the UN, thoughpersuading the countries in the western hemisphere was difﬁcult. As
mentioned, the study on the problems for indigenous peoples by the UN
Sub-Commission initially focused on South America. After the Wounded
Knee occupation in 1973, however, the Sub-Commission could notignore the problems of indigenous peoples in the United States. Durhamhimself went abroad to get support even though he had no other appropriate staff. As a result of these efforts, the International NGO Conference at Geneva was planned in September 1977 during the session of the
UN General Assembly with the support of the UN and many countries.19
In order to prepare for this International NGO Conference, the third
conference of the IITC was held in June 1977 at Wakpala on the Standing
Rock Reservation in South Dakota. The participants were from 67 tribes

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216

in the United States, Canada, Chile, Paraguay, and elsewhere. They
discussed the reports and representation for the International NGO
Conference. The workshops were held on topics such as “colonialism
and genocide,” “sovereignty,” “natural resources,” and “legal suppressions,” while the reports were prepared to submit to the United Nations.
Although the number of representatives from the countries in SouthAmerica was limited, an alliance of indigenous peoples in the western
hemisphere was consolidated. The IITC did not speciﬁcally discuss thedeﬁnition of “indigenous peoples,” as it considered Indians in theAmericas as typical “indigenous peoples.” The IITC was long led byMeans and his cohorts, and it did not follow congressional procedures
as did the WCIP. While the movement initially tended to focus on theissues of indigenous peoples in the Americas, it gradually attracted delegates from more diverse areas.20
III.

THE WORLD COUNCIL OF INDIGENOUS PEOPLES (WCIP)

The other organization in Canada was also trying to build native alliances across national borders in the 1970s. The WCIP, established in1975 and having gained ECOSOC status in 1979, was one of the leading international NGOs of indigenous peoples. The founder of the WCIP
was George Manuel.
Born in the Shuswap tribe of the Neskonlith Indian Band in British
Columbia in 1921, Manuel grew up during the assimilationist period in
Canada. In the 1950s Manuel began to organize the Shuswap andneighboring tribes to improve their conditions through community
development. He was inﬂuenced by Andrew Paull, the founder and president of the North American Indian Brotherhood (NAIB). Manuel became the president of the North American Indian Brotherhood of British
Columbia and the tribal leader of the Shuswap Indian Reserve in 1959
while trying to persuade the provincial and national governments toimprove the Native policy. In 1969, however, Prime Minister Pierre
Trudeau issued a white paper that stated the government’s intention todissolve the tribes in Canada through a “termination policy.”
Dismayed with this assimilationist policy, Manuel became the president of the National Indian Brotherhood (NIB) in 1970. The NIB was anorganization for Native rights formed by Treaty/Status Indians in 1968.
Although it was originally in ﬁnancial difﬁculty, Manuel soon acquired
federal funding without political strings attached. Its headquarters was

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near the Parliament in Ottawa, and it had a substantial library, information center, and a staff of approximately thirty salaried executive ofﬁcers.
Manuel organized the Native resistance through speeches, conferences,interviews, and strategic meetings.21
During the 1950s Manuel had already realized the necessity of international relations between aboriginal peoples. In 1971 he visited New
Zealand on one of the Canadian missions to assess policies concerning
the Maori and found similarities between the Maori and Canadian Natives. Manuel was impressed with the conditions of the New Zealand
Maori and tried to learn their strategy of defending native rights throughcommunicating with indigenous peoples abroad. The following year
Manuel visited Australia to examine land issues. He tried to reconsider
Canadian national policies by comparing them with those of the UnitedStates, New Zealand, and Australia. In 1972 the NIB decided to hold aninternational meeting of indigenous peoples and to apply for NGO status in the United Nations.22
Manuel also sought international cooperation with his counterpart in
the United States. He traveled to Washington, D.C., to meet with Mel
Tonasket of the Colville tribe, the president of the National Congress ofAmerican Indians (NCAI) in 1973. The NCAI was the largest intertribal
political organization in the United States. Founded in 1944, its membership consisted of twenty tribes. Tonasket, a member of the American
Indian Policy Review Commission, became the U.S. delegate and cofounder of the WCIP. They promised to cooperate in defending Native
rights, and the NIB and NCAI signed an agreement to establish technical exchanges. Executive ofﬁcers and staff members visited each otherto develop a better understanding of common situations in both countries.23 According to Manuel:
No Indian individual, tribe, or group of tribes has the political power andstrength that is necessary to pursue change. In that respect Indian people in
Canada and the United States are similar to other aboriginal peoples. They
also have no political power in their respective countries.24

Here Manuel explained his Pan-Indianism.
In 1974 Manuel published The Fourth World: An Indian Reality, witha foreword by Vine Deloria Jr.25 Using an autobiographical narrative of
his life, Manuel outlined the problems of Canada’s Indian policy and hisconcept of “the Fourth World”—aboriginal peoples deprived of rights and218

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power. Their cooperation based on common experiences and values wasimportant because the ﬁrst, second, and even the third worlds could not
be relied on.26 Manuel wrote: “While we identify in many respects withthe third world, we are not of their world. We are of the fourth world,
the forgotten world of aboriginal peoples locked into independent sovereign states but without an adequate voice or say in the decisions which
affect our lives.”27 After publishing this book, Manuel began to engage
in building an international indigenous network. He embarked on trips
to meet indigenous leaders in Central and South America, Australia, andNorthern Europe.
Manuel thought indigenous participation in the United Nations wouldchange the international, as well as domestic, attitudes toward indigenous peoples. Thus he planned to establish indigenous groups as aninternational NGO in the United Nations. The NIB gained consultative
status as an NGO of indigenous peoples from the UN for the ﬁrst timein 1974. In April 1974 he held a preplanning conference for aboriginalneeds in Guyana, South America. The attendees, representing aboriginal peoples from Canada, the United States, Australia, New Zealand,
Colombia, and Greenland, discussed plans for an international conference of native peoples to be held the following year.28 At this conference, a deﬁnition of “indigenous peoples” was hammered out by thedelegates: “The term indigenous people refers to people living in countries which have a population composed of differing ethnic or racial
groups who are descendants of the earliest populations living in the area
and who do not as a group control the national government of the countries within which they live.”29
The WCIP held conferences in 1975 (Canada), 1977 (Sweden), and1981 (Australia) before the WGIP meeting in 1982. It was formallyestablished in its ﬁrst conference at Port Alberni, British Columbia, October 27–31, 1975. The participants totaled about 260, including 52 representatives from participating countries,30 135 observers, 25 reporters,
and 54 staff members. Signiﬁcantly, the WCIP included delegates fromplaces such as Australia, New Zealand, and Scandinavia in addition to
the Americas. For two days they discussed the common experiences ofsuppression and discrimination in the workshops. At this time, the WCIP
was formally founded by the NIB of Canada (headed by Manuel), the
NCAI in the United States (headed by Joe de la Cruz and Phillip “Sam”
Deloria), and the Nordic Sami Council. Manuel became the president,
and Deloria was chosen as a secretary for the UN. Other founding

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executives included the delegates from Panama, Bolivia, Norway, and
New Zealand.31 At the conference, resolutions were adopted concerning
economic, cultural, political, and social rights and rights about land andnatural resources for indigenous peoples. Above all, the suppression ofindigenous peoples in Brazil was criticized. The Brazilian government
did not allow Brazilian Indians to leave the country to participate in theconference.
The WCIP sought to raise funds from the World Council of Churches
and the governments of Canada and the Scandinavian countries throughlobbying. Manuel was active in making contacts abroad by visiting
Samiland in Finland and the Scandinavian countries, as well as Mexicoand Guatemala in 1976. In February 1977, the WCIP branch of Central
American countries was established at the interim conference held in
Panama. At the time 26 countries from Asia, the South Paciﬁc, Northand South America, and Europe attended the WCIP meeting. Manuel
was optimistic about the advancement of indigenous rights because the
new American president, Jimmy Carter, had promised to promote humanrights around the world. However, the U.S. government soon cancelled
the funds for the U.S. branch of the WCIP because of political changes
in Central and South America.32
The second conference was held in Kiruna, Sweden, in August 1977.
Thirty-eight participants decided to call for a universal declaration on
the rights of indigenous peoples internationally. Eighteen countries wererepresented, but the three U.S. delegates were absent because they could
not afford to make the trip due to the previously mentioned cancellationof U.S. funds. The WCIP declaration of human rights conﬁrmed the indigenous rights of self-determination and to land as basic principles oflegal justice. A resolution about the leadership of the UN defending
human rights was adopted.33 During this time Manuel worked to see auniversal declaration on the rights of indigenous peoples become a reality. The UN would take up the cause and begin drafting its own declaration a decade later. In 1979 the WCIP was recognized with NGO status
in the United Nations.
According to Douglas Sanders, who served as a legal adviser for
Manuel, the WCIP was not a radical organization from its beginning. It
pursued indigenous autonomy and self-governance inside Canada while
proclaiming the importance of self-determination. In 1976, Manuelwrote:

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We desire neither apartheid nor assimilation but participation–participationon our terms. It requires not extinguishment of our aboriginal rights but theirpreservation. This preservation requires ﬁrst, the degree of sovereignty andself-determination that will make it possible to control our land base. And
second, the re-organization of the political institutions of the country so as
to make place for us to sit and bargain with other Canadians and the federal
government at the highest levels.34

Financially, the international conferences of the WCIP were made possible through funds from the governments of Canada, Guyana, Norway,
and Denmark, as well as through donations from church groups and public organizations.35 It was named after the most inﬂuential donor: theWorld Council of Churches. The NIB could arrange for staff and holdthe conference in 1975 with programs for developing indigenous leadership and political skills sponsored by the Canadian State Department.
Subsequent conferences in 1977 and 1981 were also ﬁnancially supported by the host countries.36
On the other hand, the IITC tried to exclude grants from federal funds
and governmental support. At the time, the ﬁnancial and organizationalfoundations of indigenous groups were likely to be fragile, and thissometimes put heavy burdens and tasks upon a few individuals in theorganizations. In the United States, however, there was a strong tradition of initiative in the private sector, and the indigenous groups tended
to have grants from semigovernmental foundations rather than thenational government. The alliance of the WCIP with the NCAI also
alienated the IITC, which saw the NCAI as an establishment group. This
relationship between the WCIP and the IITC continued into the mid1980s, when the draft declaration on the rights of indigenous peoples
was discussed at the WGIP meeting.37
IV.

THE INTERNATIONAL NGO CONFERENCE ON
INDIGENOUS POPLULATIONS OF THE AMERICAS IN 1977
After a great effort by the IITC and the WCIP, the International NonGovernmental Organizations (NGO) Conference on Indigenous Populations of the Americas was held at the UN ofﬁces in Geneva from
September 20 to 23, 1977. It was a turning point for the indigenous movement because it marked the beginning of direct action in the international
area. While the conference was initiated by the IITC, it was organizedSEARCHING FOR INDIGENOUS ALLIANCES

221

by the NGO Sub-Committee on Racism, Racial Discrimination, Apartheid, and Colonialism, a part of the Special NGO Committee on Human
Rights that was based in Geneva. Because of his experiences in Geneva,
Durham played an important role as an intermediary between indigenous
peoples and the UN.
The conference was made up of a broadly based, inﬂuential group ofinternational NGOs. More than 250 delegates, observers, and guests
attended. Indigenous participants from more than 60 nations and peoples came from the following 15 countries: Argentina, Bolivia, Canada,
Chile, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Ecuador, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama,Paraguay, Peru, Suriname, the Unites States, and Venezuela. Also attending were representatives of more than 50 international NGOs, members of UN agencies, and observers from 27 member states of the United
Nations.38
The U.S. government expressed support for U.S. participation at theconference. While the Carter administration, unlike those of Lyndon
Johnson and Richard Nixon, was indifferent to the domestic issues of
Native Americans,39 it claimed to champion international human rights
and promoted a human rights agenda in Latin America.40 President
Carter also signed the two basic human rights treaties of 1966, the International Covenants on Civil and Political Rights, and the International
Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, though the U.S.
Senate never ratiﬁed the latter. The International Covenant on Civil andPolitical Rights, with article 1 about self-determination for “all peoples”
and article 27 about the rights of minority individuals, would be the foundation for negotiating the draft Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous
Peoples.
The ﬁrst day of the conference began with a Lakota Pipe ceremony,and several delegates made opening presentations as principal speakers.
Oren Lyons, from the Iroquois Confederacy, addressed the duty of all
human beings to respect not only “human rights” but also the rights ofall the beings of Creation. José Mendoza, a Guaymi from Panama, explained how the Guaymi and other Indian nations became peasants, losing all identity as they were absorbed and exploited. Juan Condori, an
Aymara from Bolivia, said that while the Indians were a majority in his
country, they suffered from humiliation and extreme poverty without
their own lands. Means, a Lakota from the United States and the spokesperson for the IITC, criticized the exploitation of the natural world andsacred Mother Earth by multinational corporations. Phillip Deere, a222

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Muskogee-Creek Indian from the United States spoke about Native
American identity and experience under colonialism.41
At the conference, over a hundred representatives testiﬁed about indigenous issues: human rights abuses such as repression and genocide, as
well as the effects of development projects and exploitation of natural
resources. This was the ﬁrst time that indigenous people could testify on
their own behalf at the UN. They gave ﬁrsthand accounts of the conditions of indigenous peoples, mainly resulting from their relations withstates. However, some representatives from Latin American countries
were prevented by their governments from attending.
At the same time, the differences in views and opinions among participants were revealed during the sessions. Niall MacDermot, who presided
over the law committee, often intervened in the testimonies of the indigenous representatives by pointing out the need for “objectivity” and “consensus,” which invited criticism from the indigenous delegates.42 The
IITC tried to keep the WCIP out of the conference partly because of theircold relations. In one instance, when Manuel was present as the leaderof the NIB, he was ignored when he tried to speak as the representativeof the WCIP.43 Although there were incidents among the attendees, theconference was a great success because it added the collective voice ofindigenous peoples to the international human rights movement.
The following statement was included in the ﬁnal resolution of theconference:
The representatives of the indigenous peoples gave evidence to the international community of the ways in which discrimination, genocide and ethnocide operated. While the situation may vary from country to country, the roots
are common to all: they include the brutal colonization to open the way forthe plunder of their land and resources by commercial interests seeking maximum proﬁts; the massacres of millions of native peoples for centuries andthe continuous grabbing of their land which deprives them of the possibilityof developing their own resources and means of livelihood; the denial of selfdetermination of indigenous nations and peoples destroying their traditional
value system and their social and cultural fabric. The evidence pointed to thecontinuation of this oppression resulting in the further destruction of theindigenous nations.44

The conference recommended a program of action that would help protect the rights of indigenous peoples. It included a call for respect forSEARCHING FOR INDIGENOUS ALLIANCES

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traditional law and customs, communal land ownership, and indigenous
control over natural resources in their own territories. International aswell as national laws were expected to recognize and protect these practices. The conference also requested governments of all the countries of
the western hemisphere to ratify the Declaration of Human Rights andthe United Nations’ human rights conventions.45
The indigenous representatives participating in the conference produced the Draft Declaration of Principles for the Defense of the Indigenous Nations and Peoples of the Western Hemisphere.46 Article 1 statesthat indigenous nations should be recognized as independent legal subjects in international law; and, based on this, article 7 declares indigenous nations or groups to have the right of self-determination. While thisdeclaration was principally based on the ideology of the IITC, it represented the fundamental concerns at the conference. It set the basis for
subsequent negotiations in the Commission on Human Rights regarding
the question of indigenous peoples. Most important, the establishmentof the WGIP was recommended to the Sub-Commission on the Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities.
The 1977 conference called for increased communication and networking among indigenous NGOs and leaders. After the 1977 conference, the Indian Law Resource Center was founded by attorney Robert
T. Coulter (Potawatomi). With the leaders of the Haudenosaunee, or the
Six Nations Iroquois Confederacy, Coulter began the work of draftingand proposing the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples
in 1976. Since then he has actively promoted the rights of indigenous
peoples in the Americas as an issue of international human rights.47
After the conference, the study of the UN Sub-Commission was revived. As mentioned, the UN Sub-Commission was originally mandated
to prepare comprehensive reports in the areas of discrimination andminorities. Martínez Cobo was appointed to complete the study as an
outside expert. However, there were no reports for two years after theﬁrst three years of the study, 1973–75. With direct involvement of indigenous representatives after 1977, the study was restarted and completed
in 1987.48
The issues raised at the 1977 conference led to subsequent meetings.
The next year, in the UN Human Rights Commission, Durham of the
IITC presented testimony:

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Self-determination cannot be realized for Indian people by legislative acts on
the part of the very government which is oppressing them. Self-determination and human rights for Indian people in the United States could easily beachieved if the United States would honor its treaty obligations.49

Here Durham reconciled indigenous self-determination with universal
human rights. The rights of indigenous peoples were endorsed in the1978 World Conference to Combat Racism and Racial Discrimination.50
Furthermore, the indigenous representatives from the Americas gave
speciﬁc cases of human rights abuse at the Fourth Russell Tribunal, heldin Rotterdam in 1980.
In 1979, the left-wing Sandinista movement came to power in Nicaragua,and domestic warfare was triggered in Central America. Indian communities, most signiﬁcantly in Guatemala, suffered from slaughter campaigns by military regimes during the 1980s. Through their networks andthe mass media, international NGOs reported the atrocities and struggles
occurring in Central America. The indigenous movement sparked in1977 turned out to be quite signiﬁcant in responding to these changing
political situations. The WGIP continued to draw greater numbers ofindigenous delegates each year. The UN conferences and meetings often
promoted networking and mobilizing indigenous peoples with supporting organizations.51
On recommendation by the 1977 conference, the International NGO
Conference on Indigenous Peoples and the Land was held September
15–18, 1981, at the UN in Geneva. It focused on the issues of indigenous rights and land with a global perspective.52 After a series of conferences and meetings concerning indigenous peoples, the Commission
on Human Rights and ECOSOC ﬁnally approved the establishment of
the WGIP in 1982. Thus the WGIP, charged with the task of drafting adeclaration on the rights of indigenous peoples, met for the ﬁrst time inAugust 1982.53
CONCLUSION
As discussed, Native Americans and Native Canadians began to promote their identities and demands through the Red Power movement of
the 1960s, and they continued their efforts by building an international
indigenous network in the 1970s. They became increasingly visible
actors on the international scene, searching for recognition of their

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225

collective rights. Concerned international NGOs and intergovernmental
institutions supported their grassroots campaign. The International NGO
Conference in 1977 became a watershed for this movement.
The native alliances that formed to assert their inﬂuence were basedon political identities as “Indians” and “indigenous peoples.” In the earlyphase of the movement, they sought Pan-Indianism to empower themselves across the national borders between the United States and Canada,
and North and South America. Gradually this identity of Pan-Indianism
developed into an “indigenism” that included natives outside theAmericas. While the IITC primarily focused on Pan-Indianism in theAmericas, as shown in its name, the WCIP approached “indigenous peoples” there and elsewhere, including Scandinavia and Oceania. By discussing and sharing experiences, they discovered common problems
they were facing.
At the same time, this process of identiﬁcation revealed certain differences and gaps among indigenous peoples. The two leading groups,
the IITC and the WCIP, were not always in accord concerning the best
strategy for promoting their cause at the international level. Above all,there was the North-South gap in the indigenous issues. In North
America, indigenous organizations and their supporting NGOs could
lobby and consult directly on the international scene without the intervention of states in most cases. At the same time, because of growing
domestic tensions, the indigenous leaders from the countries in Central
and South America often faced a high risk by attending international
conferences for their rights. After testifying before the Fourth Russell
Tribunal in 1980, Mayan delegates were murdered on their return to
Guatemala.54 Furthermore, “self-determination” did not always mean thesame thing among the diverse indigenous peoples. While the existenceof treaties was often the legal basis for self-determination in the UnitedStates and Canada, indigenous peoples in Latin America had not historically entered into treaties with the colonial powers. Their priorities werethe most fundamental human rights to life and security, access to basic
goods and services, and secure land rights. Therefore, the international
indigenous movement that emerged from North America had certain
limitations at the early stage and reﬂected economic as well as politicaldisparities between North and South.55
In spite of these differences and divisions, the pursuit of indigenous
alliances initiated by American and Canadian natives was of great signiﬁcance. The IITC and the WCIP played important roles in developing

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the concept of indigenous rights based on human rights in the late 1970s.
The IITC initiated the 1977 International NGO Conference so that their
voice could be heard worldwide. From 1977 to 1979, Manuel was nominated annually as a candidate for the Nobel Peace Prize by IWGIA for
his achievement in leading the WCIP.56 Each organization helped establish the WGIP, the global forum for negotiating indigenous rights andmaking their voices heard at the international level. From its beginningin 1982 through the early 1990s, the numbers of delegates from NGOs
and states at the WGIP meetings increased dramatically. Although theinternational conferences were initially attended by indigenous peoples
from the Americas, soon those from various countries, including the
Ainu in Japan, joined these global networks and fora.
Hence, the international system opened the way for empowering
indigenous peoples, that is, drawing them out of their domestic powerlessness.57 After all possibilities had been exhausted in their countries,
the international movement provided a breakthrough to overcome domestic constraints and turn their handicaps into strengths. This process
showed the diversiﬁcation of indigenous peoples’ strategies to promote
their causes and gain wider support and understanding. By reconcilingindigenous rights with human rights, indigenous peoples have helped
strengthen the human rights regime in the postcolonial era.
NOTES
1“Remarks by the President at the White House Tribal Nations Conference,” Department of the Interior, Washington, DC, December 16, 2010, accessed April 15, 2011,
http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2010/12/16/remarks-president-whitehouse-tribal-nations-conference%20.
2Paul C. Rosier, Serving Their Country: American Indian Politics and Patriotism in
the Twentieth Century (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2009); Ronald Niezen,
The Origins of Indigenism: Human Rights and the Politics of Identity (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003); Karen Engle, The Elusive Promise of Indigenous Development: Rights, Culture, Strategy (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2010).
3
I would like to express my gratitude to the staff members at the Center for Southwest
Research at the University of New Mexico, the Xwi7xwa Library at the University of
British Columbia, and the Union of British Columbia Indian Chiefs Resource Centre for
their kind support when using materials at their institutions.
4
Akwesasne Notes, ed., Basic Call to Consciousness, rev. ed. (Summertown, TN:
Book Publishing Company, 1986), 41–54; “American Indians Speak in Geneva,” Native
American Solidarity Committee, March 1978, 15.
5
The “blue water thesis” saw the decolonization process only for overseas colonies,
not within the territory of independent countries. S. James Anaya, Indigenous Peoples
in International Law, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 54, 75–76.

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6
S. James Anaya, “International Law and U.S. Trust Responsibility Toward Native
Americans,” in Native Voices: American Indian Identity and Resistance, ed. Richard
Grounds, George E. Tinker, and David E. Wilkins (Lawrence: University of Kansas,
2003), 160–64.
7
The UN initially tended to use the term “indigenous population(s)” instead of “indigenous peoples.” The use of the term “peoples” implies and presupposes the right ofself-determination as that term is understood in international law. Over the course ofdrafting the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, there were long debates
about whether the term “peoples” should be included. Alexandra Xanthaki, Indigenous
Rights and United Nations Standards: Self-determination, Culture and Land (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2007), 70–73, 132–36.
8“Study of the Problem of Discrimination against Indigenous Populations: Preliminary Report,” E/CN.4/Sub.2/L566, June 29, 1972, 10.
9Rosier, Serving Their Country, 109–220.
10
Daniel M. Cobb, Native Activism in Cold War America: The Struggle for Sovereignty (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2008); Paul Chaat Smith and Robert Allen
Warrior, Like a Hurricane: The Indian Movement from Alcatraz to Wounded Knee (NewYork: The New Press, 1996).
11
Christopher K. Riggs, “American Indians, Economic Development, and Self-Determination in the 1960s,” in Pacific Historical Review 69, no. 3 (2000): 439; Treaty
Council News 2, no. 1 (April 1978): 2.
12
Lucy R. Lippard, “Jimmie Durham: Postmodernist ‘Savage’,” Art in America 81,
no. 2 (February 1993): 62–69.
13
These organizations included the World Council of Churches (WCC), the World
Peace Council (WPC), the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom(WILPF), the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ), and others.
14
Akwesasne Notes, Early Summer 1974: 4–5; Russell Means, Where White Men Fearto Tread: The Autobiography of Russell Means, with Marvin J. Wolf (New York: St.
Martin’s Grifﬁn, 1995), 324–25.
15
Means, Where White Men Fear to Tread, 324; Akwesasne Notes, Early Summer
1974: 4.
16
Lippard, “Jimmie Durham,” 62–69; Kathleen Teltsch, “American Indian Council
Seeks U.N. Accreditation,” New York Times, January 26, 1975, 31.
17“Second International Indian Treaty Conference,” Native American Solidarity Committee, July 1976; “Challenge Genocide and Colonization with Truth and Action,”
Native American Solidarity Committee, December 1976, 2.
18
Means, Where White Men Fear to Tread, 356.
19
Vine Deloria, Jr., Behind the Trail of Broken Treaties: An Indian Declaration of
Independence (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1985; orig. pub. 1974), 267–68;
Means, Where White Men Fear to Tread, 365.
20
Treaty Council News 1, nos. 4 and 5 (July–August 1977): 1–5; Henry Minde, “The
Destination and the Journey: Indigenous Peoples and the United Nations from the 1960s
through 1985,” Gáldu Čála: Journal of Indigenous Peoples Rights 4 (2007): 19.
21
Douglas Sanders, “Background Information to the World Council of Indigenous
Peoples: The Formation of World Council of Indigenous Peoples.” Center for World
Indigenous Studies, 1980; Peter McFarlane, Brotherhood to Nationhood: George
Manuel and the Making of the Modern Indian Movement (Toronto: Between the Lines,
1993), 127–28.
22
Sanders, “Background Information”; McFarlane, Brotherhood to Nationhood,
155–71.

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23
Rudolph C. Ryser, “The Legacy of Grand Chief George Manuel,” Center for World
Indigenous Studies, 1995.
24“NCAI Signs Agreement with Canadian Indians,” NCAI Sentinel: Bulletin, JulyAugust 1974: 3.
25
George Manuel, The Fourth World: An Indian Reality (Don Mills, ON: CollierMacmillan, 1974).
26
Manuel, Fourth World, 4–12.
27
George Manuel, “An Appeal from the Fourth World,” Native People (Edmonton),November 12, 1976, 3.
28
Steve Atencio, “Native American Brotherhood Pres. Plans World Organization ofAboriginal People as Answer to Need for Unity,” Wassaja, November-December 1974,
13.
29
Sanders, “Background Information.”
30
Argentina, Australia, Bolivia, Canada, Colombia, Ecuador, Finland, Greenland(Denmark), Guatemala, Mexico, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Norway, Panama, Paraguay,
Peru, Sweden, United States (including Hawaii), Venezuela. The WCIP initially omitted
countries in Asia and Africa for practical organizational reasons. Sanders, “Background
Information.”
31
WCIP, “The World Council of Indigenous Peoples’ First General Assembly, Port
Alberni, B.C. Canada, 1975,” 4. Manuel remained the president of the WCIP until 1981.
32
McFarlane, Brotherhood to Nationhood, 245; George Manuel, “Report of the WorldCouncil of Indigenous Peoples, January 20, 1977,” 1–6.
33
WCIP, “The World Council of Indigenous Peoples’ Second General Assembly,
Kiruna, Samiland, Sweden, August 24–27, 1977,” 4–10.
34
Manuel, “Appeal from the Fourth World,” 2–3.
35
World Council of Churches, IWGIA based in Denmark, Swedish IWGIA, the United
Nations Association of Denmark, the Faculty of Humanities at Copenhagen University,
the Anglican Church of Canada, the Canadian Catholic Organization for Development
and Peace and Oxfam Canada, and others.
36“From the ofﬁce of the Secretary of the State: Notes for an address by Secretary ofState J. Hugh Faulkner to the International Conference for Indigenous Peoples, Port
Alberni, BC, October 27, 1975,” 9–11.
37
Treaty Council News 1, nos. 4 and 5 (July–August 1977): 7; Minde, “Destination
and Journey,” 19, 21.
38
United Nations, Commission on Human Rights, Sub-Commission on Prevention ofDiscrimination and Protection of Minorities, Study of the Problem of Discrimination
against Indigenous Populations, chap. 4, “Other International Action” by José R.
Martínez Cobo (E/CN.4/sub.2/476/Add.5), June 17, 1981, 35, accessed June 15, 2011,
http://www.un.org/esa/socdev/unpﬁi/documents/MCS_iv_en.pdf.
39
George Pierre Castile, Taking Charge: Native American Self Determination andFederal Indian Policy, 1975–1993 (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2006), 21–23,
29–30.
40
David F. Schmitz and Vanessa Walker, “Jimmy Carter and the Foreign Policy of
Human Rights: The Development of a Post-Cold War Foreign Policy,” Diplomatic History 28, no. 1 (January 2004): 113–43; Minde, “Destination and Journey,” 24.
41
Akwesasne Notes, December 1977: 6–11.
42
Ibid., 16–18.
43
WCIP, “World Council of Indigenous Peoples Four Year Report (1977–1981),” 7;
Minde, “Destination and Journey,” 19.

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44
Report of International NGO Conference on Discrimination against Indigenous
Populations–1977–in the Americas, September 20–23, 1977, Palais des Nations,Geneva, quoted in United Nations, Study of the Problem of Discrimination against Indigenous Populations, chap. 4, “Other International Action,” June 17, 1981, 36.
45
Ibid., 39–53.
46
The declaration was based on the following thirteen chapters focusing on indigenous rights: (1) Recognition of Indigenous nations, (2) Subjects of International Law,
(3) Guarantee of Rights, (4) Accordance of Independence, (5) Treaties and Agreements,(6) Abrogation of Treaties and other Rights, (7) Jurisdiction, (8) Claims to Territory, (9)Settlement of Disputes, (10) National and Cultural Integrity, (11) Environmental
Protection, (12) Indigenous Membership, (13) Conclusion. United Nations, Study of the
Problem of Discrimination against Indigenous Populations, chap. 4, “Other International Action,” annex 4, June 17, 1981, 1–3.
47
Robert T. Coulter, “UN Declaration sets new agenda for U.S.-Indian relations,”
December 16, 2010, accessed July 3, 2011,
http://www.indianlaw.org/content/un-declaration-sets-new-agenda-us-indian-relations.
48
United Nations, Commission on Human Rights, Sub-Commission on Prevention ofDiscrimination and Protection of Minorities, Study of the Problem of Discrimination
against Indigenous Populations, accessed June 15, 2011,
http://www.un.org/esa/socdev/unpﬁi/en/spdaip.html.
49“People’s Right to Self-Determination,” Treaty Council News 2, no. 1 (April 1978):2.
50
WCIP, “World Council of Indigenous Peoples Four Year Report (1977–1981),”
12–14.
51
Akwesasne Notes, Basic Call to Consciousness, 128.
52
Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, “The First Decade of Indigenous Peoples at the United
Nations,” Peace and Change 31, no. 1, (January 2006): 67–69; WCIP, “Four Year Report(1977–1981),” 12–14.
53
After starting to draft the Declaration in 1985, the WGIP ﬁnally formulated the Draft
Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in 1994. From 1996 to 2006, the Draft
Declaration was further reviewed in an intersessional working group of the Commission
on Human Rights.
54
Akwesasne Notes, Basic Call to Consciousness, 71. For the Indian rights movementin Latin America, see Alison Brysk, “Turning Weakness into Strength: The Internationalization of Indian Rights,” Latin American Perspectives 23, no. 2 (Spring 1996):
38–57.
55
Stephen Allen and Alexandra Xanthaki, eds., Reflections on the UN Declaration on
the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (Oxford and Portland: Hart, 2011), 102–20.
56
McFarlane, Brotherhood to Nationhood, 244–46.
57
Although not many Indian tribes and First Nations could have access to the UN, thefollowing are a few examples. In 1977, Sandra Lovelace, a Maliseet Indian petitioned
the UN Human Rights Committee over the treatment of aboriginal women and children
in Canada by the government (Sandra Lovelace v. Canada, 1977–1981). As a result,
Parliament amended a discriminatory section of the Indian Act in 1985 in compliancewith the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Anne F. Bayefsky, “The Human Rights
Committee and the Case of Sandra Lovelace,” Canadian Year Book of International
Law 20 (1982): 244–66. In the United States, Mario Gonzalez ﬁled complaints for theBlack Hills Claims of the Oglala Sioux tribe with the UN Sub-Commission on thePrevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities in the early 1980s. Mario230

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Gonzalez and Elizabeth Cook-Lynn, The Politics of Hallowed Ground: Wounded Kneeand the Struggle for Indian Sovereignty (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1999),
170–71. After the Western Shoshone representatives went before the UN panel in 2006,
the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) acknowledged
the U.S. government’s violations of their traditional rights and urged federal authorities
to stop all actions on tribal land. “UN criticises U.S. government over Western Shoshonetribe,” Survival International, March 15, 2006, accessed November 20, 2011,
http://www.survivalinternational.org/news/1478.