Indigenous Affirmative Action A primary goal of the human rights
movement is to ensure equality for all persons and citizens of
nation states. Within the United Nations Declaration on the
Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) there is much talk about
self-determination, exercise of cultural, territorial rights,
and economic rights. Such rights, however, can only be exercised
to the extent that any other group or citizen can enjoy the same
rights. The human rights emphasis, including collective human
rights directed to Indigenous Peoples, are designed to make sure
that Indigenous Peoples enjoy human rights to the same extent as
all other persons. The framers of UNDRIP believe that the
document does not contain any reference to special rights for
Indigenous Peoples. In many ways, UNDRIP was a codification of
existing international human rights, much more focused on
indigenous issues. Nothing new was created by this bringing
together of references to human rights and Indigenous Peoples in
terms of recognizing In