From Past to Present: Analysis of UDHR & UNDRIP with Reference to the Indigenous Populace of India

Abstract

The two most extravagant achievement on human rights law in international perspective are Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) of 1948 and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) of 2007. Both of them fall under the soft law category arousing controversies. The much awaited International legal framework for Indigenous Peoples’ i.e., UNDRIP and ILO Convention No. 107 alongwith 169 protecting for collective rights of the indigenous peoples are much awaited instruments for the ‘self-determination’ of Indigenous Peoples’ which is de rigueur by member state to rectify. However, certain member states denied to rectify commenting it as instrument of bias or broadening of the pre-existence law.

This article examines the need of the specific law to be rectified for overall development of Indigenous Peoples. It will also investigate on the controversy concerning UNDRIP in the view of contemporary discussion over the legal recognition by the UDHR. These discussions unearth the fictions of divergence and convergence which spotlight on Indigenous Peoples by asserting outreach approaches within the context of human rights in India.