 and welcome to Cooper Union, what's happening with human rights around our world on ThinkTech Live, broadcasting from our downtown studio in Honolulu, Hawaii, and Moana, Nuiakeha. Today we're looking at Article 1, Born Free and Equal, Demanding Dignity and Realizing Rights. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights provides the power of ideas to initiate progressive social change around the planet, and Article 1 is a foundational right upon which many of the remaining UDHR articles depend on for individual dignity and collective well-being. Article 1 recognizes that all human beings are born free, equal, and dignity and rights, and we're so excited to be talking with Andrea today. Andrea, thank you so much for joining us, and could you share with us why Article 1 is so important in this world we live in today? Lo sem choku utesya, umau yai, respectful greetings to you, my relatives, and our heartfelt love and prayers go to the Indigenous peoples and all of the peoples of the community of Lahaina in Hawaii. Today we are devastated along with you there in Hawaii for what has happened to the people there and the impacts of climate change which will only keep increasing. We're suffering here in the west coast of the United States from a hurricane as well, the first one that's hit Southern California since they say 1939, and even though I'm in the desert in Arizona, the homeland, along with northern Mexico of the Yaqui nation, my peoples, we're getting some rainfall, but we have many, many relatives along the Pacific Coast, and this is something that we're working on to insist that Indigenous peoples' solutions and impacts be respected in the work on climate change. I think that all of us who are Indigenous grew up with the impacts of racial discrimination and the inequalities that exist in the current structures around the world, so this article is in particular important for us as we move through the UN system beginning in 1974 when the International Indian Treaty Council was founded because of the lack of justice in the structures and the justice systems of nation states, not just the United States, but the founding of the International Indian Treaty Council on Standing Rock in 1974. There were about 5,000 delegates from throughout the hemisphere all talking about the lack of justice, the lack of redress, the continuing human rights violations we were experiencing, so for that reason we decided to go into the international arena as nations, as treaty nations, to seek a seat with the family of nations and look for justice and redress there. By the way, I will say this because I think it's important for this discussion that I've had the opportunity in all of these years of work internationally to be in literally every continent, maybe except Antarctica, working with Indigenous peoples and realizing that Indigenous peoples, as Indigenous peoples, we don't have any literal translation for the term human rights. We'd say in Yaki and in our Indigenous language, the people's responsibility or duty to the creator and the created world together, which means other human beings, it means defending our own ways of life, defending the natural world, but that's a responsibility and so we had to learn the rights language and how to talk about it and when we first read the Universal Declaration on Human Rights that was put in place in 1948 by the United Nations, the family of nations, we resonated culturally with what it said, especially I want to say the first sentence of the preamble is very important for how to understand article one, which I'll talk about, it says, whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world. The words inherent and inalienable very much speak to the ways that Indigenous peoples understand our rights and responsibilities that no one gives you those, no declaration, no constitution, no treaty, no law, but those are ours because of who we are placed by the creator on our homeland and so no one can give or take away human rights, they can be violated and are continually or they can be respected but they can't be given or taken away and this is very important and this translates into our language that inherent and inalienable rights and dignity and when you read then the first article of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights, Affirming Equality, it needs to be read through the that lens in our point of view, says all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights and again that dignity and rights are inherent and inalienable according to the preamble of the Declaration. They are endowed means we members of the human family are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in the spirit of brotherhood with these principles of inalienable dignity and inherent rights that the Declaration affirms and this is very important because when we began to work on the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples that expands what is contained in the Universal Declaration which affirms rights for members of the human family, individuals, all individuals, all human beings, we began to look at collective rights and how Indigenous Peoples rights as individuals are expressed through our membership in our peoples, in our nations and how our rights are collective, our land rights, language, spiritual practices, cultures, all of those rights that are affirmed in the Universal Declaration are in fact collective rights for Indigenous Peoples. So in the preamble of the UN Declaration on Rights of Indigenous Peoples we had the opportunity to define for ourselves and expand on the affirmation in the Universal Declaration and this is what it says in the preamble, recognizing the urgent need to respect and promote the inherent rights of Indigenous Peoples which derive from their political, economic and social structures and from their cultures, spiritual traditions, histories and philosophies especially their rights to their lands, territories and resources. So for us this is the implementation and the context of the implementation of the right affirmed in Article 1 of the Universal Declaration and just puts some context on it from the point of view of Indigenous Peoples. So all of these rights we feel are contained in that one article and can be implemented by Indigenous Peoples accordingly. Thank you so much Andrea and it's true it's inalienable and inherent absolutely at its core and also what's quite crucial as well is that the impact that you're sharing that these international human rights are absolutely essential as we move forward but you also then summarize it so well of interspecies and understanding how everything is interconnected and that's really why Article 1 is sort of the heart of all that we're looking at. Could you share with us a bit of what first inspired you to care about the issue and some of the first campaigns you're involved in around Article 1 of the UDHR? Well I think that all of us who are Indigenous experienced experiences life experiences as children as very young people that made us realize that this reason and conscience and the implementation of equality you know really did not exist as it should in the world that we were in and I remember experiences for example in the fourth grade even where I was selected as the Indigenous child with long grades to play the role of the Indian welcoming the colonizers to the land in California, Uniprosara the priest and my role was to get down on my knees and kiss his ring this kid wearing a bathrobe right pretending to be Uniprosara if it was for the end of school play. Kids still to this day study California history in fourth grade in California I had to kiss his ring and say thank you Padre for giving us God you know that was that was I knew I didn't know the history the real history of the missions and the genocide against California Indian um Indigenous peoples but I knew that was wrong and I went home and I wouldn't go back to school for the rest of the year and my mother may she rest in peace uh didn't make me go back she knew it was wrong too. Other experiences you know were just racism coming from my friend's parents and those kinds of elements that made us feel less than as children and understand as we learn more that this is a product of colonization this is a product of racial discrimination and how that whole history came about you know the discovery of the Americas by Columbus for example you know which is another another lie of history we try to promote truth in history we try to tell the truth about what happened and the process of colonization and how Indigenous peoples have survived that oppression and that um doctrine of discovery you know colonization that we had to suffer so all of this I think has built up to who we are today no matter where we're from um as Indigenous peoples we've experienced it and we knew in our heart that this was wrong and that's why I really love this article because it not only affirms equality and dignity and rights but it also speaks to how humans should act towards each other you know is that spirit of brotherhood upholding that equality and we know that it doesn't today um one one example um that we're working on I know you'd like to see how we're implementing this is as as you well know we've been working for many many years and it's affirmed in the UN declaration on rights of Indigenous peoples the right of repatriation of our sacred items and human remains and it's an example of the inequality we still suffer that only Indigenous peoples human remains ancestral remains are displayed and not only displayed but bought and sold by auction houses around the world as some kind of artifacts you know we just um the Aki Nation just this last uh July after a 20-year struggle got our sacred Masakova um ceremonial deer head returned from the museum uh a ethnography the National Museum of Sweden and we wrote them as soon as we discovered that it was there it's a living being to us it's like seeing a child in a glass cage when I first saw it um we say Sayla Maso our little brother the deer but when our spiritual leader very soon after I returned and told them what had happened wrote them and say this harms our people to have it there it needs to be taken care of by those entrusted to fulfill that role by our own laws um we thought well they'll give it back right away they'll say oh we didn't know we will come get it but it took us 20 years of using the United Nations and using um articles like this to assert the equal rights that we have to our sacred and ceremonial objects that are still being unearthed and dug up and our cemeteries are I have a beautiful picture here of them digging up an Indian cemetery to build a road in California and a picture of a beautiful well-cut with a signed Christian ceremony on it where they would never think of you know digging up graves to to put a road through it's just one of the many examples but the positive thing is we are asserting those rights and we are making progress because now the United Nations recognizes that our laws governing the use and the placement of our sacred items and ceremonial um belongings um our patrimony have equal weight with the laws of countries and the laws of the United Nations um and we're being able to use that and that will be for everybody oh it's really important and I I love the historical context looking at where the discrimination begins the prejudices and practiced by different nations as well as different cultures and then challenging that to then see the world in a new way through conscience through actually caring for one another and as you talked about earlier it's that responsibility or that kuleana that we actually have a duty to take care of our first and one other the message of Malama Honu is absolutely essential what's so exciting is this year's the 100th anniversary of Desca Hayes visit to Geneva and International Treaty Council being the the and you share a bit on how ITC actualizes the articles in the international human rights system absolutely um as as I mentioned the International Indian Treaty Council was formed out of the struggle of American Indians and many of and by by saying American I mean throughout the Americas not United States but when we got to the United Nations where we were sent by our elders to seek a voice because we had no voice in the in the national justice system so to speak there were no other indigenous peoples there we were the first indigenous peoples organization to be recognized with consultative status at the UN Economic and Social Council in way back in in 1977 but also we were the first to be what's called I think the only still to date upgraded to what's called general consultative status in 2011 because exactly what you're saying we take the struggle for rights and our responsibility to ensure that they are protected in many different bodies of the United Nations and just thinking and like we were talking about what's happening now the suffering going on in Lahaina the hurricanes happening in California a lot of it is because of what's called climate crisis right now today the the unbridled and unceasing exploitation of the natural resources and the natural world of our mother earth and we've been telling the nation states for many many years you need to listen to the ancestral knowledge the original sciences of indigenous peoples or we're going to end up in this situation and we've been participating at the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change we've been able to officially get a body there where we sit on an equal standing and equal number with the countries I think the only body in the UN system where indigenous peoples actually on our own select our representatives not this discriminatory fashion of you know we can nominate to the permanent forum or the expert mechanism of rights of indigenous peoples but the states they'll they'll decide what's best for us and who should be you know the expert members this one we actually get to decide ourselves and we've been able to move that into official recognition this year it will be 30 indigenous peoples knowledge holders and practitioners will be there meeting directly with the nation states and informing them not only of the struggles that we're going through because of climate change where we have the least contribution to the problem we are the first on the front lines to experience the impacts but also our recommendations of how things must change or you know we may join the the million species that are predicted to become extinct by the united nations due to climate change and we can see that all over why why would we be exempt from that we're part of the natural world and human beings the human family as they say are are the cause of the problem indigenous peoples have solutions that have been discounted because of discrimination because of racism because they see us as folkloric or somehow you know dancing for us but don't tell us anything that really makes a difference you know that's changing now and we've been able to change that at least in the discussions on climate change now will they do what's necessary which is a radical and immediate transformation of the fossil fuel economy we don't know but we know that they are listening to us in a way that they have not in the past you know they they recognize we have science that is so developed way beyond uh you could say western science you know our traditional yaki food producers to this day I've seen it can look at the moon can talk to the insects and see if next year it's going to be a wet year or a dry year a cold year or a hot year so they know what color of corn to plant now because they know what the weather is going to be in the future you know the western scientists can't do that but they're finally beginning to break through that discriminatory kind of racist um in an unequal approach to science and understand that they need to listen to us and to their benefit as well. Excellent point of we've got to stop the exploitation and really focus on exchange mutual exchange based on respect and human rights for all you really brought up a great point about the un framer convention on climate change and indigenous access but also the un permanent form on indigenous issues maybe you can share how indigenous peoples have really transformed the un and been able to make really a state run system listen to the voice of the people who really care for the planet as well as one another which is at the essence of article one. You mentioned uh Descache the Harnashoni leader that went to the League of Nations a hundred years ago and we have beautiful uh celebrations and commemorations in Geneva um in July commemorating that as well as uh the travels of Ratnaha the Maori spiritual leader um who also went at the same time totally independent and they went there as treaty nations as um those that should be seated with the family of nations and of course they were not even allowed to come into the building um at the League of Nations and so of course you know it seems like the progress can be very slow at the United Nations but if you look and see how far we've come in terms of being fully participatory we had an indigenous representative who became the first uh indigenous president of a treaty UN treaty body the third the committee on elimination of racial discrimination talking about you know discrimination here um we are now recognized as independent experts and representatives uh at many many United Nations bodies where that was unheard of our first body at the United Nations was the working group on indigenous populations founded back in 1982 even though the topic was indigenous we weren't called peoples yet then at the UN system but populations they drafted together with the indigenous participants and the state members the first uh UN declaration on rights of indigenous peoples but it was not even considered that all five expert members of the working group on indigenous populations were not indigenous uh it was not even on the table that hey shouldn't these at least a couple of them be uh indigenous peoples they were all selected by the nation states and they weren't even you know considering including an indigenous expert so if you look now how we created uh bodies like the UN permanent forum on indigenous issues positions like the United Nations repertoire on rights of indigenous peoples bodies like the expert mechanism on rights of indigenous peoples where it's assumed that those experts are going to be indigenous and the fact that indigenous peoples are now participating in expert seminars are called on to be experts in many many UN processes such as the UNFCCC which was probably one of the most discriminatory and hard to participate in for indigenous peoples we were not even allowed to be in the room when the Paris agreement was uh drafted back in 2015 for example you know so it's still a challenge there to actually take part in the negotiations however we are being listened to and our participation is broad throughout the entire UN system now um sometimes it's hard to even keep up with all the places that we can be and and should be again not just to address the violations of our rights and the ongoing and rampant discrimination and inequality that exists the repression against human rights defenders even the the assassinations of indigenous human rights defenders that is continuing to this day we also have a responsibility to be at the table to contribute not just to our own survival but to the survival and the equal rights and dignity of all members of the human family because we don't feel that being a colonizer and an oppressor is uh really fulfilling dignity either so it's probably you know less dignified to be a colonizer than it is to be colonized and we have a responsibility to everyone's children and future generations not just indigenous peoples and that really summarizes how indigenous peoples have been able to identify the larger issues that even human rights haven't connected I remember really being at the working group on indigenous populations and we had changed initially in the first studies by Francois Hemsson that looked at the threat of extinction and loss of land and it really identified so hopefully really a pioneer in the field for what's most important and where we need to head can you share with us a bit about the your vision for the future of this right I think that the human family and many many elements and members of the natural world our relatives the plants and the animals and and all of the elements are really at a preface right now uh we are um facing um a dreadful situation in terms of our ability to survive in the natural world and we're seeing it here we had we're in the Sonora desert we had the hottest uh July ever recorded in the history of the world the whole planet and the survival um and the vision of indigenous peoples makes us understand that our teachings are needed more than ever now and what we see for the future of course you know the vision that we have um for equality and dignity and our rights to lands um resources culture self-determination being respected um has to be put in the context of the crisis situation that we're seeing in terms of climate change otherwise as they say we might be just rearranging deck chairs on the titanic uh we have to address this issue and indigenous peoples have to be respected uh and given an equal voice in the decisions that are being made today excellent point and really article one says we have to understand that beyond being born free and equal and dignity and rights we're all endowed in our world with reason and conscience and should act towards one another's spirit of brotherhood and sisterhood and that's really what indigenous peoples have modeled at the UN through direct action when needed many actions that you've taken but also through diplomacy to make sure that these promises on paper are reality in the daily lives of people around our planet yes that's true I just want to end with saying one thing and that's that um we look at these beautiful words on paper like you say and the recommendations from the special report tours uh and UN bodies and the treaty bodies how how the states should change their behavior states meaning countries in the UN system uh and the question keeps coming up where's the teeth how are these things actually going to get implemented and I always look back to the words of one of our um indigenous leaders here after um the country visit of special report tour James Anaya to the United States in 2012 we had all these great recommendations we set up all these hearings he made incredibly strong recommendations to the United States how they should change and implement the UN declaration of indigenous peoples but he we came to a meeting after to kind of assess everything that had happened and evaluate and he said you know I was thinking we have these great recommendations but where are the teeth in the UN process we have these great declarations we have these great conventions but where's the teeth and then I started realizing wait a minute we're the teeth we are the teeth we are the ones that are going to make this happen because in spite of everything those in power are still resisting they're still not the political will they don't even want to call for a phase out of fossil fuels at the UN convention our climate change you know we have to make that happen by our strong stand and we have to be the one that as you say our examples of the spirit of brotherhood and sisterhood that's part of our indigenous teachings we got to care about their kids too as well as ours that's true I mean I remember saying earlier so we're all in this together seems sometimes I was just stating it but we appreciate all the work you've done for decades to make the world a better place and to actualize article one thank you so much and look forward to see you at the next global meeting maybe at the UN assembly and thank you so much for all that you do on the 75th anniversary of the UDHR you as well thank you