La declaración de las Naciones Unidas sobre los Derechos de los Pueblos Indígenas: un hito en el proceso de reconocimiento de los derechos indígenas

Abstract

Indigenous peoples have lived through a process of invisibility and systematic exclusion practically ever since the era of conquest. The arrival of republican States in Latin America following the decolonization process did not involve a substantial change in the traditional relationship of subjection and submission endured by native peoples in the Americas. In the mid twentieth century, the international community began to pay attention to the marginalized situation of indigenous peoples. The main objective was to integrate some peoples that were considered to be backward and in need of protection. It was within this paradigm that most of the interactions with indigenous peoples have occurred, such as the first international treaty adopted in this field, Convention No. 107 of the International Labour Organization (ILO, 1957). This situation began to change with the adoption of Convention No. 169 by the ILO in 1989, and especially with the recently adopted United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP, 2007). From this point onwards, indigenous peoples have become subjects of rights under international law rather than objects of protection, thus becoming protagonists of a far-reaching process of expansion of human rights.