190
Arctic Yearbook 2013
Sowa
the Inuit as an indigenous people as a strategic articulation to keep the status of hunting whales.
Based on the fact that the discourses on the collective cultural identity of the Greenlandic Inuit are
to be determined by their indigenous status, the following section will explain the genesis of this
category in
world polity
.
The Distinction between „Primitive‟ and Civilized Peoples:
On the Global Models of
World Polity
In the past, former colonized communities were often defined by the dominant societies as
‗primitive peoples.‘ Following World War II, the notion took foot that all people should have equal
claim to basic [human] rights. Therefore it was agreed in the
UN Charter
of 1945 and in the
Universal
Declaration of Human Rights
of 1948 that all UN member states pledge to promote respect for and
observance of human rights and fundamental freedoms. The member states committed themselves
to guaranteeing all people the same and inalienable rights and liberties independent of race, language,
or religion. Not only the populations of the member states were to profit from universal human
rights but likewise those who lived in territories under the sovereignty of the member states. Even
though in both international declarations the terms ‗primitive peoples‘ or ‗indigenous peoples‘ did
not crop up at all, the consequence was that the individual members of the indigenous groups had
the same rights and the same claim to the protection of the law as the members of all other groups
within a state (Wolfrum, 1999: 370f.). Furthermore, in the Declaration regarding Non-Self-
Governing Territories of the
UN Charter
, Article 73 sanctioned a decolonization mandate for former
colonies of all the member states. These were obliged to protect and respect the peoples who had
not yet obtained self-government and promote their aspirations to the same. Finally the
establishment of the UN system fostered the recognition of indigenous peoples. For the present
context it is relevant that in this system social groups without nation-state unity acquired a voice.
Thus fora and working groups were created so that highly diversified problems and concerns could
be discussed. The changes in the general framework – the Declaration of Universal Human Rights,
the decolonization mandate for UN member states, the UN system giving non-nation-states the
possibility of being heard – led many former colonized communities that did not achieve the status
of a nation-state to fight for recognition through the UN system. This was not a process that
happened from one day to the next, but it ultimately resulted in the recognition of indigenous
peoples in treaties through the UN. ‗Primitive peoples‘ were made into ‗indigenous peoples‘ with
specific rights (Sowa, 2013b).
The milestones for the recognition of indigenous peoples in treaties within the UN system were the
report
Study of the Problem of Discrimination Against Indigenous Populations
by the special rapporteur Jose
R. Martinez Cobo (Cobo, 1983), the two ILO conventions No. 107
Indigenous and Tribal Populations
(International Labour Organisation, 1957) and No. 169
Indigenous and Tribal Peoples
(International
Labour Organisation, 1989), as well as the foundation of the
Working Group on Indigenous Populations
.
The result was the recognition of indigenous peoples having the right to self-identification as
‗indigenous.‘
Indigenous communities, peoples and nations are those which, having a historical
continuity with pre-invasion and pre-colonial societies that developed on their