We applaud the United Nations’ passage of the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and congratulate the many, many indigenous elders and activists who collaborated over decades to enshrine these fundamental human rights in international law. However, in the spirit of dialogue and debate we offer these thoughts on the removal of the words “sacred places” from the document, in final negotiations behind closed doors as the declaration moved toward the General Assembly in 2006.

Throughout the 1990s, as indigenous people around the world worked to build support for the Draft Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, sacred places were explicitly mentioned. In 1994, the draft stated (bold text for emphasis):

PART III

Article 12

Indigenous peoples have the right to practice and revitalize their cultural traditions and customs. This includes the right to maintain, protect and develop the past, present and future manifestations of their cultures, such as archaeological and historical sites, artifacts, designs, ceremonies, technologies and visual and performing arts and literature, as well as the right to the restitution of cultural, intellectual, religious and spiritual property taken without their free and informed consent or in violation of their laws, traditions and customs.

Article 13

Indigenous peoples have the right to manifest, practise, develop and teach their spiritual and religious traditions, customs and ceremonies; the right to maintain, protect, and have access in privacy to their religious and cultural sites; the right to the use and control of ceremonial objects; and the right to the repatriation of human remains.

States shall take effective measures, in conjunction with the indigenous peoples concerned, to ensure that indigenous sacred places, including burial sites, be preserved, respected and protected.

In the 2006-7 version that was approved this week by the General Assembly (with adjusted Article numbering in which the old Article 12 became 11 and 13 became 12), this very important language was changed:

PART III

Article 11

1. Indigenous peoples have the right to practice and revitalize their cultural traditions and customs. This includes the right to maintain, protect and develop the past, present and future manifestations of their cultures, such as archaeological and historical sites, artefacts, designs, ceremonies, technologies and visual and performing arts and literature.

2. States shall provide redress through effective mechanisms, which may include restitution, developed in conjunction with indigenous peoples, with respect to their cultural, intellectual, religious and spiritual property taken without their free, prior and informed consent or in violation of their laws, traditions and customs.

Article 12

1. Indigenous peoples have the right to manifest, practice, develop and teach their spiritual and religious traditions, customs and ceremonies; the right to maintain, protect, and have access in privacy to their religious and cultural sites; the right to the use and control of their ceremonial objects; and the right to the repatriation of their human remains.

2. States shall seek to enable the access and/or repatriation of ceremonial objects and human remains in their possession through fair, transparent and effective mechanisms developed in conjunction with indigenous peoples concerned.

Our attempts to discover why the words “sacred places” were removed in what appears to have been a small committee meeting in 2006 have so far failed to bear fruit. States probably objected to a fearful concept that seems to threaten economic development and private property rights, and a committee of indigenous negotiators may have compromised to undercut resistance as a promised vote by the General Assembly finally was approaching.

The Declaration was tabled and did not come to a vote in November 2006, and thus the compromise may not have been necessary. It is definitely unfortunate. Including the specific mention of “sacred places” would have been a huge, historic step forward — indeed for twenty years the draft declaration included the requirement that states cooperate with indigenous people to ensure respect for and protection of sacred places. This language reflected a consensus built and sustained over many years.

We are left with “archaeological and historical sites” and “religious and cultural sites” — terms that governments and modern societies do not understand in the indigenous context and hence usually reduce to human built structures, places where there is archaeological evidence, material sites related to the human past. This omission can effectively and conveniently eliminate sacred natural sites, where an undisturbed geophysical formation is understood to be sacred, imbued with power and spirit, important to ancestors and guardians, experienced on a level beyond the physical — a mountain, a spring, a tree or grove, a lake, a river, a rock — “sacred places.”

Perhaps it is arrogant for humans to try to enshrine “rights” to sacred places, when the proper relationship is one of voluntary, deeply felt “responsibility.” But in an instrument of international policy, sacred places could have used explicit recognition and protection.