<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><rss xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" xmlns:content="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/content/" xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom" version="2.0" xmlns:itunes="http://www.itunes.com/dtds/podcast-1.0.dtd" xmlns:googleplay="http://www.google.com/schemas/play-podcasts/1.0"><channel><title><![CDATA[The Indigenous Diplomat]]></title><description><![CDATA[The tactical guide for Indigenous leaders who want to move the UN, not just attend it. One  5-minute lesson every Saturday, free. Members: Full education platform (daily briefings, workshops, AMA, and 20 years of frameworks).]]></description><link>https://www.indigenousun.org</link><image><url>https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!auvR!,w_256,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fe98132ac-8620-4b3a-a115-2c1f75c0f511_500x500.png</url><title>The Indigenous Diplomat</title><link>https://www.indigenousun.org</link></image><generator>Substack</generator><lastBuildDate>Thu, 11 Jun 2026 18:07:14 GMT</lastBuildDate><atom:link href="https://www.indigenousun.org/feed" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml"/><copyright><![CDATA[Ghazali Ohorella]]></copyright><language><![CDATA[en]]></language><webMaster><![CDATA[gomaluku@substack.com]]></webMaster><itunes:owner><itunes:email><![CDATA[gomaluku@substack.com]]></itunes:email><itunes:name><![CDATA[Ghazali Ohorella]]></itunes:name></itunes:owner><itunes:author><![CDATA[Ghazali Ohorella]]></itunes:author><googleplay:owner><![CDATA[gomaluku@substack.com]]></googleplay:owner><googleplay:email><![CDATA[gomaluku@substack.com]]></googleplay:email><googleplay:author><![CDATA[Ghazali Ohorella]]></googleplay:author><itunes:block><![CDATA[Yes]]></itunes:block><item><title><![CDATA[The generalist is done at UNFCCC, making people feel smart is the skill, and an elder yelled at me in Sydney.]]></title><description><![CDATA[Brief of June 10, 2026]]></description><link>https://www.indigenousun.org/p/the-generalist-is-done-at-unfccc</link><guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.indigenousun.org/p/the-generalist-is-done-at-unfccc</guid><dc:creator><![CDATA[Ghazali Ohorella]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Wed, 10 Jun 2026 23:06:33 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://substack-video.s3.amazonaws.com/video_upload/post/201520099/c2690537-2b6b-44e0-9b56-ec073f3e3b1f/transcoded-06602.png" length="0" type="image/jpeg"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>What you&#8217;ll hear:</p><ul><li><p>In these negotiations the clock is not what time it is. The clock is when is my next meeting. Nine till almost eleven. That was today.</p></li><li><p>It started at Madrid, accelerated at Glasgow. The shift from principles to machinery, from one inch deep one mile wide to one inch wide one mile deep.</p></li><li><p>If you are still a generalist in climate negotiations &#8230;</p></li></ul>
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          <a href="https://www.indigenousun.org/p/the-generalist-is-done-at-unfccc">
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   ]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[You have international law and diplomacy backwards, world cafe beats your 3 minute speech, & Daria is detained yet still our co-chair.]]></title><description><![CDATA[Brief of June 9, 2026]]></description><link>https://www.indigenousun.org/p/you-have-international-law-and-diplomacy</link><guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.indigenousun.org/p/you-have-international-law-and-diplomacy</guid><dc:creator><![CDATA[Ghazali Ohorella]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Tue, 09 Jun 2026 23:11:43 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://substack-video.s3.amazonaws.com/video_upload/post/201362616/b2ea699d-c1a6-4b29-8e40-f67950611866/transcoded-42203.png" length="0" type="image/jpeg"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>What you&#8217;ll hear:</p><ul><li><p>This morning the caucus unanimously decided: For the duration of Daria's detention, she will remain co-chair of the IIPFCC. Not much. But it is a signal.</p></li><li><p>World cafe is the most underused opportunity in climate negotiations. 7 groups, 7 chances to embed the same language into the stocktake summary. I explain exactly how. </p></li><li><p>International law&#8230;</p></li></ul>
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          <a href="https://www.indigenousun.org/p/you-have-international-law-and-diplomacy">
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   ]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Carbon markets stopped being political, I deleted 40 seconds from our opening statement, and build your dream or build someone else's.]]></title><description><![CDATA[Brief of June 8, 2026]]></description><link>https://www.indigenousun.org/p/carbon-markets-stopped-being-political</link><guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.indigenousun.org/p/carbon-markets-stopped-being-political</guid><dc:creator><![CDATA[Ghazali Ohorella]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 08 Jun 2026 22:25:50 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://substack-video.s3.amazonaws.com/video_upload/post/201205975/c6ba7f70-b2d8-400a-a0cc-ed28fae01fd8/transcoded-139990.png" length="0" type="image/jpeg"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>What you&#8217;ll hear:</p><ul><li><p>Article 6 is no longer a political negotiation. They are building the machine now. Most Indigenous Peoples do not know when the fight moved from principle to processor.</p></li><li><p>Opening statements at SB 64 are free throws. Most caucuses treat them like Christmas trees. What word economy actually looks like and why I had to break some eggs to get &#8230;</p></li></ul>
      <p>
          <a href="https://www.indigenousun.org/p/carbon-markets-stopped-being-political">
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   ]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Disney's queue trick applies to UN negotiations, the FWG is not your only door, and we stopped treating FWG as a privilege.]]></title><description><![CDATA[Brief of June 5-6, 2026]]></description><link>https://www.indigenousun.org/p/disneys-queue-trick-applies-to-un</link><guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.indigenousun.org/p/disneys-queue-trick-applies-to-un</guid><dc:creator><![CDATA[Ghazali Ohorella]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Sat, 06 Jun 2026 20:48:42 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://substack-video.s3.amazonaws.com/video_upload/post/200930221/e2f38f78-c8ba-4f73-8072-5dd6408ac375/transcoded-197171.png" length="0" type="image/jpeg"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>What you&#8217;ll hear today:</p><ul><li><p>The facilitated working group captures four days of conversation into one line: "we will continue discussing." No draft document, no iteration to shoot at.</p></li><li><p>I explain why that is the measurement problem and why Disney's snake queue solved it for theme parks.</p></li><li><p>People of African descent were brought to Bonn and told: this is your entry &#8230;</p></li></ul>
      <p>
          <a href="https://www.indigenousun.org/p/disneys-queue-trick-applies-to-un">
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   ]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[UNCCD named it the Indigenous Caucus. I found State seats on page 4.]]></title><description><![CDATA[On the UNCCD draft that gave States the keys to your locker room.]]></description><link>https://www.indigenousun.org/p/unccd-named-it-the-indigenous-caucus</link><guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.indigenousun.org/p/unccd-named-it-the-indigenous-caucus</guid><dc:creator><![CDATA[Ghazali Ohorella]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Sat, 06 Jun 2026 07:50:51 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!Bgra!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F2dfa36ed-199b-48b6-b2c0-9d4ba96cfc9d_1360x765.jpeg" length="0" type="image/jpeg"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<div class="poll-embed" data-attrs="{&quot;id&quot;:536772}" data-component-name="PollToDOM"></div><div class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img" target="_blank" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!Bgra!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F2dfa36ed-199b-48b6-b2c0-9d4ba96cfc9d_1360x765.jpeg" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM"><div class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!Bgra!,w_424,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F2dfa36ed-199b-48b6-b2c0-9d4ba96cfc9d_1360x765.jpeg 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!Bgra!,w_848,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F2dfa36ed-199b-48b6-b2c0-9d4ba96cfc9d_1360x765.jpeg 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!Bgra!,w_1272,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F2dfa36ed-199b-48b6-b2c0-9d4ba96cfc9d_1360x765.jpeg 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!Bgra!,w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F2dfa36ed-199b-48b6-b2c0-9d4ba96cfc9d_1360x765.jpeg 1456w" sizes="100vw"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!Bgra!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F2dfa36ed-199b-48b6-b2c0-9d4ba96cfc9d_1360x765.jpeg" width="626" height="352.125" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/2dfa36ed-199b-48b6-b2c0-9d4ba96cfc9d_1360x765.jpeg&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:765,&quot;width&quot;:1360,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:626,&quot;bytes&quot;:184899,&quot;alt&quot;:null,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:&quot;image/jpeg&quot;,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:false,&quot;topImage&quot;:true,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:&quot;https://www.indigenousun.org/i/200819303?img=https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F2dfa36ed-199b-48b6-b2c0-9d4ba96cfc9d_1360x765.jpeg&quot;,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" class="sizing-normal" alt="" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!Bgra!,w_424,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F2dfa36ed-199b-48b6-b2c0-9d4ba96cfc9d_1360x765.jpeg 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!Bgra!,w_848,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F2dfa36ed-199b-48b6-b2c0-9d4ba96cfc9d_1360x765.jpeg 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!Bgra!,w_1272,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F2dfa36ed-199b-48b6-b2c0-9d4ba96cfc9d_1360x765.jpeg 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!Bgra!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F2dfa36ed-199b-48b6-b2c0-9d4ba96cfc9d_1360x765.jpeg 1456w" sizes="100vw" fetchpriority="high"></picture><div class="image-link-expand"><div class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset"><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container restack-image"><svg role="img" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 20 20" fill="none" stroke-width="1.5" stroke="var(--color-fg-primary)" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"><g><title></title><path d="M2.53001 7.81595C3.49179 4.73911 6.43281 2.5 9.91173 2.5C13.1684 2.5 15.9537 4.46214 17.0852 7.23684L17.6179 8.67647M17.6179 8.67647L18.5002 4.26471M17.6179 8.67647L13.6473 6.91176M17.4995 12.1841C16.5378 15.2609 13.5967 17.5 10.1178 17.5C6.86118 17.5 4.07589 15.5379 2.94432 12.7632L2.41165 11.3235M2.41165 11.3235L1.5293 15.7353M2.41165 11.3235L6.38224 13.0882"></path></g></svg></button><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container view-image"><svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" stroke="currentColor" stroke-width="2" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" class="lucide lucide-maximize2 lucide-maximize-2"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></svg></button></div></div></div></a></figure></div><p>Tabea, happy Saturday.</p><p>It&#8217;s the third day of the facilitated working group. A message comes in. A link. Eight pages: Draft Terms of Reference, Indigenous Peoples Caucus under the UNCCD.</p><p>I open it.</p><ul><li><p>Page one: background. UNDRIP. Rio Conventions. Fine.</p></li><li><p>Page two: purpose. Facilitate meaningful participation. Fine.</p></li><li><p>Page four: membership.</p></li></ul><p>Seven Indigenous regional seats. Five state seats. A state co-chair.</p><p>I stopped.</p><div><hr></div><h2><strong>What the UNCCD is and why this matters</strong></h2><p>There are three Rio Conventions:</p><ul><li><p>UNFCCC is on climate change</p></li><li><p>CBD is on biodiversity</p></li><li><p>UNCCD is on desertification, land degradation and drought</p></li></ul><p>The UNCCD covers dry land. 2.5 billion people live on it. Many of them Indigenous Peoples. It&#8217;s the convention that gets the least attention in Indigenous circles. That is starting to change.</p><p>At its COP16, parties decided to create an Indigenous Peoples Caucus under the UNCCD. Suddenly. Then the Secretariat drafted a Terms of Reference. <strong><a href="https://www.unccd.int/news-stories/notifications/draft-terms-reference-indigenous-peoples-caucus-and-local-communities">Now it is open for written comments.</a></strong></p><p>Deadline: June 15.</p><p>Nine days.</p><p>Wanting a caucus is the right instinct. To see what went wrong, you need to know what a caucus actually is.</p><div><hr></div><h2><strong>What a caucus actually is</strong></h2><p>A caucus is your locker room. It is where you agree on your position before you walk into the negotiation. Where you decide what to say and what not to say. Where you have the argument before you are in the room with states.</p><p>It only works if the other side is not in there.</p><p>Your community is deciding what to say to the government. A government official is in the room while you&#8217;re deciding. Not as a guest. As a permanent member with a co-chair title.</p><p>You would not call that a community meeting.</p><p>That is the structure this document built. If you want the full picture on what a caucus should be: <strong><a href="https://www.indigenousun.org/p/the-indigenous-caucus-your-power">The Indigenous Caucus: Your Power Move in UN Spaces</a></strong></p><p>Now read what the Secretariat actually built.</p><div><hr></div><div class="subscription-widget-wrap-editor" data-attrs="{&quot;url&quot;:&quot;https://www.indigenousun.org/subscribe?&quot;,&quot;text&quot;:&quot;Subscribe&quot;,&quot;language&quot;:&quot;en&quot;}" data-component-name="SubscribeWidgetToDOM"><div class="subscription-widget show-subscribe"><div class="preamble"><p class="cta-caption">Receive 1 free field note like this every Saturday</p></div><form class="subscription-widget-subscribe"><input type="email" class="email-input" name="email" placeholder="Type your email&#8230;" tabindex="-1"><input type="submit" class="button primary" value="Subscribe"><div class="fake-input-wrapper"><div class="fake-input"></div><div class="fake-button"></div></div></form></div></div><div><hr></div><h2><strong>It said caucus. The draft built something else.</strong></h2><p>At COP16, the decision asked the Secretariat to support the development of terms of reference for an Indigenous Peoples Caucus. That is all it said. It did not:</p><ul><li><p>Create a formal body</p></li><li><p>Give states seats in the caucus</p></li><li><p>Mandate a state co-chair</p></li><li><p>Allow states to review or amend the governance</p></li><li><p>Give states the power to decide when it takes effect</p></li></ul><p>The document used that mandate the way a planning permission to build a shed gets used to build a house. The permit said caucus. The building says consultative body.</p><p>Here is what the draft actually built:</p><ul><li><p>Five permanent state seats inside the body</p></li><li><p>A state co-chair</p></li><li><p>State-led review every four years</p></li><li><p>Entry into effect only when states adopt it</p></li></ul><p>A body designed around state participation got a name that says Indigenous Peoples.</p><p>The name is doing specific damage.</p><div><hr></div><h2><strong>It says Indigenous Peoples. The seats say otherwise.</strong></h2><p>The document is called the Indigenous Peoples Caucus.</p><p>An Indigenous caucus TOR that&#8217;s under review by Parties? This is a major leap backwards. </p><p>That name tells every Indigenous person reading it: this is yours. You are safe here. You can coordinate here.</p><p>But the composition gives states five permanent seats and a co-chair. The rules can change every four years when states decide to review them. The document does not exist until states adopt it.</p><p>You walk in. Five state representatives already seated. A state official at the front. A note on the door: this room only opens when we decide. That&#8217;s a trap with a friendly sign.</p><p>Now look at the numbers.</p><p>The LCIPP Facilitative Working Group has seven Indigenous regional seats and seven state seats. Parity. Indigenous Peoples fought for that. It took years.</p><p>The UNCCD draft uses seven Indigenous seats and five state seats. Not even parity.</p><p>Why are they in there at all? The second document makes that question even harder to answer.</p><div class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img" target="_blank" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!IFj-!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F90abdeb1-8e57-4721-9b17-252b63c3134d_2221x1297.png" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM"><div class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!IFj-!,w_424,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F90abdeb1-8e57-4721-9b17-252b63c3134d_2221x1297.png 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!IFj-!,w_848,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F90abdeb1-8e57-4721-9b17-252b63c3134d_2221x1297.png 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!IFj-!,w_1272,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F90abdeb1-8e57-4721-9b17-252b63c3134d_2221x1297.png 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!IFj-!,w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F90abdeb1-8e57-4721-9b17-252b63c3134d_2221x1297.png 1456w" sizes="100vw"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!IFj-!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F90abdeb1-8e57-4721-9b17-252b63c3134d_2221x1297.png" width="560" height="326.9230769230769" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/90abdeb1-8e57-4721-9b17-252b63c3134d_2221x1297.png&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:850,&quot;width&quot;:1456,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:560,&quot;bytes&quot;:414266,&quot;alt&quot;:null,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:&quot;image/png&quot;,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:true,&quot;topImage&quot;:false,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:&quot;https://www.indigenousun.org/i/200819303?img=https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F90abdeb1-8e57-4721-9b17-252b63c3134d_2221x1297.png&quot;,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" class="sizing-normal" alt="" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!IFj-!,w_424,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F90abdeb1-8e57-4721-9b17-252b63c3134d_2221x1297.png 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!IFj-!,w_848,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F90abdeb1-8e57-4721-9b17-252b63c3134d_2221x1297.png 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!IFj-!,w_1272,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F90abdeb1-8e57-4721-9b17-252b63c3134d_2221x1297.png 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!IFj-!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F90abdeb1-8e57-4721-9b17-252b63c3134d_2221x1297.png 1456w" sizes="100vw" loading="lazy"></picture><div class="image-link-expand"><div class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset"><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container restack-image"><svg role="img" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 20 20" fill="none" stroke-width="1.5" stroke="var(--color-fg-primary)" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"><g><title></title><path d="M2.53001 7.81595C3.49179 4.73911 6.43281 2.5 9.91173 2.5C13.1684 2.5 15.9537 4.46214 17.0852 7.23684L17.6179 8.67647M17.6179 8.67647L18.5002 4.26471M17.6179 8.67647L13.6473 6.91176M17.4995 12.1841C16.5378 15.2609 13.5967 17.5 10.1178 17.5C6.86118 17.5 4.07589 15.5379 2.94432 12.7632L2.41165 11.3235M2.41165 11.3235L1.5293 15.7353M2.41165 11.3235L6.38224 13.0882"></path></g></svg></button><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container view-image"><svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" stroke="currentColor" stroke-width="2" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" class="lucide lucide-maximize2 lucide-maximize-2"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></svg></button></div></div></div></a></figure></div><div><hr></div><h2><strong>The local communities TOR is the cleaner document</strong></h2><p>There were two TORs drafted. One for Indigenous Peoples. One for local communities. Same Secretariat. Same convention. Same moment.</p><p>The local communities document:</p><ul><li><p>Self-organized</p></li><li><p>Internal</p></li><li><p>Non-binding</p></li><li><p>Governance kept to a minimum</p></li></ul><p>The Indigenous Peoples document:</p><ul><li><p>State seats inside it</p></li><li><p>State co-chair</p></li><li><p>State-led review</p></li><li><p>State adoption required</p></li></ul><p>The document with our name on it gives you less than the document without it. That&#8217;s the kind of outcome you get by accident or by design. Either way, it&#8217;s a problem.</p><p>A caucus is where Indigenous Peoples organize themselves. A consultative body includes States. The mandate asked for one. The draft built the other and gave it the first one&#8217;s name.</p><p>The comment window is still open.</p><div><hr></div><h2><strong>Before you go</strong></h2><p>Most people read the objectives, feel reassured, and submit nothing. The text moves forward.</p><p>Read Section XII and XIII first. XII tells you who controls the review. XIII tells you when it takes effect. If those aren&#8217;t in Indigenous hands, the objectives are decoration.</p><p>I&#8217;ve sent my comments to the IITC team. <strong><a href="https://www.unccd.int/news-stories/notifications/draft-terms-reference-indigenous-peoples-caucus-and-local-communities">Submit something before June 15</a></strong>. Three sentences. You need to be on record.</p><p>This document won&#8217;t stay inside the UNCCD. Other bodies will copy it. Bad examples travel faster than good ones.</p><p>Here is the painful part.</p><p>Before this document, you had the right to caucus. Nobody gave it to you. Nobody can take it. You show up. You coordinate. That is yours.</p><p>After this document, your caucus exists when States adopt it. Meets when they fund it. Changes when they decide.</p><p>You are being asked to trade something you already own for something they control.</p><p>And most people in the room thought that was a good deal.</p><p>See you next Saturday.<br></p><p class="button-wrapper" data-attrs="{&quot;url&quot;:&quot;https://www.unccd.int/media/52007&quot;,&quot;text&quot;:&quot;Download the document here&quot;,&quot;action&quot;:null,&quot;class&quot;:null}" data-component-name="ButtonCreateButton"><a class="button primary" href="https://www.unccd.int/media/52007"><span>Download the document here</span></a></p><div><hr></div><p><strong>P.S.</strong></p><p>I answer 5 questions for Indigenous leaders that don&#8217;t want to just show up to the UN:</p><ol><li><p>What&#8217;s the map I&#8217;ve been missing? <a href="https://www.indigenousun.org/t/newsletter">Weekly newsletter</a></p></li><li><p>I have a situation. What do I do with it? <a href="https://www.indigenousun.org/t/ama">Open AMA</a></p></li><li><p>What&#8217;s my next move in this process? <a href="https://www.indigenousun.org/p/link">Playbooks</a></p></li><li><p>What&#8217;s your read from inside right now? <a href="https://www.indigenousun.org/t/brief">Daily briefs</a></p></li><li><p>How do I actually win in today&#8217;s UN? <a href="https://www.indigenousun.org/t/workshop">Workshops</a></p></li></ol><p>I built all of this because showing up has never been enough.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Bad UNCCD language travels as fast as good, and two words everyone cheered were a trap.]]></title><description><![CDATA[Brief of June 4, 2026]]></description><link>https://www.indigenousun.org/p/bad-language-travels-as-fast-as-good</link><guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.indigenousun.org/p/bad-language-travels-as-fast-as-good</guid><dc:creator><![CDATA[Ghazali Ohorella]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 04 Jun 2026 19:47:09 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://substack-video.s3.amazonaws.com/video_upload/post/200641017/3a4efab6-97e1-4cdb-a88b-ebf3ec09ba9a/transcoded-179697.png" length="0" type="image/jpeg"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>What you&#8217;ll hear today:</p><ul><li><p>The main thing I am trying to prevent across every multilateral agreement I work in: bad language and bad procedures traveling to new processes that copy-paste what looks like a best practice without understanding the context.</p></li><li><p>The UNCCD published eight pages of terms of reference for an "Indigenous Peoples Caucus." </p></li><li><p>One person, two &#8230;</p></li></ul>
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          <a href="https://www.indigenousun.org/p/bad-language-travels-as-fast-as-good">
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   ]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[How the Indigenous movement is now copying the UN, and there is something worse than a pretendian.]]></title><description><![CDATA[Brief of June 3, 2026]]></description><link>https://www.indigenousun.org/p/how-the-indigenous-movement-is-now</link><guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.indigenousun.org/p/how-the-indigenous-movement-is-now</guid><dc:creator><![CDATA[Ghazali Ohorella]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 04 Jun 2026 04:07:27 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://substack-video.s3.amazonaws.com/video_upload/post/200525817/41176784-b77c-4b9e-a77d-cd9ef054d811/transcoded-159389.png" length="0" type="image/jpeg"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>What you&#8217;ll hear:</p><ul><li><p>Ideas do not wait for you to be ready. They find a host, go inside, and wait. If you are not the one to unpack them, they leave. Elizabeth Graham writes about this. Several Indigenous civilizations already have a name for it.</p></li><li><p>The Zettelkasten method: Flleeting cards, evergreen cards, and a rule about when to put the document away. An Inu&#8230;</p></li></ul>
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          <a href="https://www.indigenousun.org/p/how-the-indigenous-movement-is-now">
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   ]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[It is not a budget crisis, the ethical protocol has a travel risk, and Gulf state airlines are statecraft.]]></title><description><![CDATA[Brief of June 1-2, 2026]]></description><link>https://www.indigenousun.org/p/it-is-not-a-budget-crisis-the-ethical</link><guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.indigenousun.org/p/it-is-not-a-budget-crisis-the-ethical</guid><dc:creator><![CDATA[Ghazali Ohorella]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Wed, 03 Jun 2026 19:58:19 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://substack-video.s3.amazonaws.com/video_upload/post/200450210/a5aabdcf-d379-44c0-bde1-795016acb51a/transcoded-133588.png" length="0" type="image/jpeg"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>What you&#8217;ll hear:</p><ul><li><p>Why the bureau of the Human Rights Council recycled a 10% meeting time reduction that was supposed to be a one-session measure, and what that means for the expert mechanism in July.</p></li><li><p>Why Japan publicly called for concluding special mandates and shifting to reduced follow-up at the HRC organizational meeting, on the record, in a public ses&#8230;</p></li></ul>
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          <a href="https://www.indigenousun.org/p/it-is-not-a-budget-crisis-the-ethical">
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   ]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Article 18 doesn’t say what you think it says.]]></title><description><![CDATA[On the blind side of international law]]></description><link>https://www.indigenousun.org/p/article-18-doesnt-say-what-you-think</link><guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.indigenousun.org/p/article-18-doesnt-say-what-you-think</guid><dc:creator><![CDATA[Ghazali Ohorella]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Sat, 30 May 2026 14:50:58 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/c8b4aa45-2293-4a61-b27f-9afaf0448801_1088x608.jpeg" length="0" type="image/jpeg"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<div class="poll-embed" data-attrs="{&quot;id&quot;:521343}" data-component-name="PollToDOM"></div><p></p><p>Tabea, happy Saturday,</p><p>It&#8217;s Wednesday evening in Geneva, heatwave of 30+ degrees just started.<br><br>I&#8217;m walking back from a negotiation that had nothing to do with Indigenous Peoples. <br><br>At least, that&#8217;s what the agenda said.<br><br>It was on the draft Declaration on the Rights of People of African Descent. Not my process. My name wasn&#8217;t on the programme. Nobody sent me an invitation.<br><br>I was there anyway.<br>As this process has something. <br><br>Paragraphs lifted verbatim from UNDRIP articles buried deep inside the African descent draft. Collective rights. Ancestral lands. 30 years of the Indigenous movement&#8217;s language, now being applied to a different group, on the same lands, without a single separation clause.<br><br>Here&#8217;s what that costs you.<br><br>In Latin-America, communities of African descent (so those from the transatlantic slave trade) and Indigenous Peoples are already claiming the same lands under different legal frameworks. When that tension reaches international level, and it will, States will point to this text. They&#8217;ll say both claims are covered by the same standard. <br><br>Your distinct right to FPIC? Just got averaged down.</p><div class="callout-block" data-callout="true"><p style="text-align: center;">I&#8217;ll say it again: <strong>Your distinct right to FPIC get averaged down.</strong></p><p></p></div><div><hr></div><div class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img" target="_blank" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!GAOG!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F86300ee3-1b77-463c-8ab9-7abf408747ad_1088x608.jpeg" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM"><div class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!GAOG!,w_424,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F86300ee3-1b77-463c-8ab9-7abf408747ad_1088x608.jpeg 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!GAOG!,w_848,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F86300ee3-1b77-463c-8ab9-7abf408747ad_1088x608.jpeg 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!GAOG!,w_1272,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F86300ee3-1b77-463c-8ab9-7abf408747ad_1088x608.jpeg 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!GAOG!,w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F86300ee3-1b77-463c-8ab9-7abf408747ad_1088x608.jpeg 1456w" sizes="100vw"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!GAOG!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F86300ee3-1b77-463c-8ab9-7abf408747ad_1088x608.jpeg" width="586" height="327.47058823529414" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/86300ee3-1b77-463c-8ab9-7abf408747ad_1088x608.jpeg&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:608,&quot;width&quot;:1088,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:586,&quot;bytes&quot;:116443,&quot;alt&quot;:null,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:&quot;image/jpeg&quot;,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:false,&quot;topImage&quot;:true,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:&quot;https://www.indigenousun.org/i/199753325?img=https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F86300ee3-1b77-463c-8ab9-7abf408747ad_1088x608.jpeg&quot;,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" class="sizing-normal" alt="" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!GAOG!,w_424,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F86300ee3-1b77-463c-8ab9-7abf408747ad_1088x608.jpeg 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!GAOG!,w_848,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F86300ee3-1b77-463c-8ab9-7abf408747ad_1088x608.jpeg 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!GAOG!,w_1272,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F86300ee3-1b77-463c-8ab9-7abf408747ad_1088x608.jpeg 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!GAOG!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F86300ee3-1b77-463c-8ab9-7abf408747ad_1088x608.jpeg 1456w" sizes="100vw" fetchpriority="high"></picture><div class="image-link-expand"><div class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset"><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container restack-image"><svg role="img" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 20 20" fill="none" stroke-width="1.5" stroke="var(--color-fg-primary)" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"><g><title></title><path d="M2.53001 7.81595C3.49179 4.73911 6.43281 2.5 9.91173 2.5C13.1684 2.5 15.9537 4.46214 17.0852 7.23684L17.6179 8.67647M17.6179 8.67647L18.5002 4.26471M17.6179 8.67647L13.6473 6.91176M17.4995 12.1841C16.5378 15.2609 13.5967 17.5 10.1178 17.5C6.86118 17.5 4.07589 15.5379 2.94432 12.7632L2.41165 11.3235M2.41165 11.3235L1.5293 15.7353M2.41165 11.3235L6.38224 13.0882"></path></g></svg></button><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container view-image"><svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" stroke="currentColor" stroke-width="2" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" class="lucide lucide-maximize2 lucide-maximize-2"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></svg></button></div></div></div></a></figure></div><p>Let me make it real practical for you here.<br><br>Imagine you live on a river basin in Colombia. Your community has been here for four hundred years. You know every bend in that river. Your entire lineage is buried there too.<br><br>One morning, a community of African descent next door files a legal claim on a piece of your community&#8217;s lands. Ancestral lands, they say. Their ancestors were brought here. They have roots there too. Where? Exactly that piece of land where your grandparents were buried.<br><br>And now they have a declaration that says those roots are protected under international law. <br><br>Same word as yours: Ancestral.<br>Same rights as yours: Collective.<br><br>You both show up to the same table. You both have documents. You both have history.<br><br>Now what?<br><br>There is no clause in either text that says whose claim takes priority. No mechanism that resolves the overlap. States do not need to take your land. They just step back and let the two claims cancel each other out. While you fight, the dam gets approved.<br><br>That is what is sitting inside that draft. 30 years of your movement&#8217;s language, copied word for word, applied to a different group, in the same geography. No separation clause. Nobody flagged it.<br><br>I did.<br><br>Reparations has not even arrived yet. When it does, this gets worse.<br><br>You cannot stop a waterfall with a sippy cup. You go in before the waterfall forms.<br><br>Moral of the story is that you belong in every negotiation where your rights could be touched. Even when its not on their or your agenda. I call it The Blind Side. Find it before it bites you in the ass.<br><br>Pardon my French.<br><br>But knowing the trap isn&#8217;t enough.<br>You still have to decide what to do when you&#8217;re in the room.</p><div><hr></div><h2><strong>The silence I chose</strong></h2><p>Here&#8217;s what happened this week: Business and Human Rights treaty.<br><br>In short, States are writing a binding treaty on corporations and human rights. Not a guideline. A treaty. When a mining company destroys your land, this is the text that decides what happens next. Who is a victim. Who gets a remedy. Who gets nothing.</p><p>One morning we were debating who counts as a &#8220;victim&#8221; under the instrument.<br>Individuals? Groups? Collectives?</p><p>I had a statement ready.<br>But I didn&#8217;t take the floor.<br><br>Here&#8217;s why.<br><br>I could see some States waiting. The ones that have blocked UNDRIP language in six consecutive sessions. The second I would say in my speech that &#8220;Indigenous Peoples&#8221; need to be inside the victims definition, they would have added &#8220;and local communities&#8221; to the same clause.</p><p><em>I was also calculating that since we were discussing definitions in Article 1, that it could open the door to a definition of Indigenous Peoples. Huuuuge no go.</em><br><br>The definition then becomes &#8220;individuals, groups, Indigenous Peoples and local communities.&#8221; Now we&#8217;re in a deconflation fight inside a legally binding instrument. The session burns on that. We would leave with less than we arrived with.<br><br>What to do?<br><br>I texted a colleague instead.<br>What if you proposed &#8220;individually as well as collectively&#8221;? <br><br>That would cover communities, groups and us, without naming Indigenous Peoples explicitly. Its an elegant way out, in stead of only singling out individuals. But more importantly, nothing for some delegations to hook local communities to.<br><br>She proposed it. It landed. A State and NGOs echoed the proposal. Colleague looked smart.  Pandora&#8217;s box stayed shut. Everyone wins.<br></p><blockquote><h4><strong>Before you speak, ask yourself one thing: Does saying something put a target on the idea?</strong></h4></blockquote><p><br>Sometimes your name, or the deliverer is the problem. Not the argument. Just you.<br><br>So you do not say something, you text a colleague, you give them the language, they put it in the room. Same ask. No target on your back.<br><br>But none of this works if you don&#8217;t know what the UN Declaration already gave you.<br><br>Most go to the UN wearing a straightjacket. They forget something important in the UN Declaration. They wait for the pain, harm, violation to be visible before they claim the seat.<br><br>That&#8217;s too late.</p><div><hr></div><h2><strong>What article 18 actually says</strong></h2><p>Another one.<br><br>Last year I received a message from an Indigenous leader in another process asking if I could review a communication to the UN, it was about participation.<br><br>I read the doc: Good instincts. Wrong framing.<br><br>The letter said that Indigenous Peoples have the right to participate in environmental decision-making processes that affect them.<br><br>I&#8217;ve heard that in interventions. Read it in submissions. Seen it in letters sent to actual treaty bodies.<br><br>Everyone says it.<br>But, Article 18 doesn&#8217;t.</p><ol><li><p>Article 18 says that you have the right to participate in decision making. All of them. Not just environmental ones.</p></li><li><p>Article 18 also says the right is to participate in decision-making in matters which would affect&#8230;</p></li></ol><p>the operative word being: Would. <br><br>Here&#8217;s how you should read it:<br><br>You don&#8217;t need to prove that a process is already harming your Indigenous Peoples. You only need to know (not show) that it could affect you. That&#8217;s the difference between waiting for the damage and preventing it.<br><br>I&#8217;m talking: Outer space governance. AI policy. Ocean, business, drugs, tax, older persons, anything under the sun treaties. So not only wherever the word Indigenous appears but also where it may never appear or never appears.<br><br>If you decide that something may affect your Indigenous Peoples&#8217; rights, you already have a seat. Mazel tov, now go get &#8216;em.<br><br>Don&#8217;t take my word for it, the UN said so.</p><div class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a class="image-link image2" target="_blank" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!ugAz!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F066b4c3b-1175-4e48-84e9-a393c2507e8c_1666x482.png" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM"><div class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!ugAz!,w_424,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F066b4c3b-1175-4e48-84e9-a393c2507e8c_1666x482.png 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!ugAz!,w_848,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F066b4c3b-1175-4e48-84e9-a393c2507e8c_1666x482.png 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!ugAz!,w_1272,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F066b4c3b-1175-4e48-84e9-a393c2507e8c_1666x482.png 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!ugAz!,w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F066b4c3b-1175-4e48-84e9-a393c2507e8c_1666x482.png 1456w" sizes="100vw"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!ugAz!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F066b4c3b-1175-4e48-84e9-a393c2507e8c_1666x482.png" width="650" height="187.94642857142858" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/066b4c3b-1175-4e48-84e9-a393c2507e8c_1666x482.png&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:421,&quot;width&quot;:1456,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:650,&quot;bytes&quot;:149524,&quot;alt&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:&quot;image/png&quot;,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:true,&quot;topImage&quot;:false,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:&quot;https://www.indigenousun.org/i/199753325?img=https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F066b4c3b-1175-4e48-84e9-a393c2507e8c_1666x482.png&quot;,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" class="sizing-normal" alt="" title="" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!ugAz!,w_424,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F066b4c3b-1175-4e48-84e9-a393c2507e8c_1666x482.png 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!ugAz!,w_848,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F066b4c3b-1175-4e48-84e9-a393c2507e8c_1666x482.png 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!ugAz!,w_1272,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F066b4c3b-1175-4e48-84e9-a393c2507e8c_1666x482.png 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!ugAz!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F066b4c3b-1175-4e48-84e9-a393c2507e8c_1666x482.png 1456w" sizes="100vw" loading="lazy"></picture><div></div></div></a></figure></div><p>It isn&#8217;t a process but a meeting or something else? <br>That&#8217;s why the word MATTERS is important.<br><br>This is why I was in that African descent session. Why I sit in over 60 resolution negotiations a year, adequate housing negotiations, sea level rise consultations, right to development meetings. None of them say Indigenous. But all of them fall under <em><strong>would affect</strong></em>. <br><br>The UN isn&#8217;t like that movie Minority Report. That Tom Cruise film where police arrest people before the crime even happens. That system acts before the damage.<br><br>The UN doesn&#8217;t work that way. It doesn&#8217;t detect the absence of Binota, Pirita or Huna and calls them in. It doesn&#8217;t act before the damage happens. It doesn&#8217;t wait. But it does react. It moves when you push and does nothing when you don&#8217;t.<br><br>Nobody is coming to get you.<br><br>So, what do you do? You go. Show up before the word &#8216;Indigenous&#8217; appears, claim that seat. Get in their face (in a diplomatic way). <br><br>Many of you have been waiting for a system that acts proactively, but that system doesn&#8217;t exist.</p><p>Stop waiting.</p><div><hr></div><blockquote><p><strong>If you remember nothing else:</strong></p><ul><li><p>The Blind Side is where the structural damage happens. Scan for it before the session opens.</p></li><li><p>When your name creates a hook, let someone else carry the text. You get the result without the fight.</p></li><li><p>Article 18 says &#8220;which would affect.&#8221; That word expands your mandate into every UN process. Use it.</p></li></ul></blockquote><div><hr></div><h2><strong>Before you go</strong></h2><p>Now, here&#8217;s a common mistake.<br><br>Next week (maybe at SB64 in Bonn) you&#8217;ll check that document, Command+F &#8220;Indigenous&#8221; find that it&#8217;s still there, and think the week went fine.<br><br>You&#8217;ll be right about that document.<br>But, you&#8217;ll miss the four other texts that moved language you didn&#8217;t see coming.<br><br>So, list every process touching land, climate, finance, health, oceans, or business. That&#8217;s your watch-list. You don&#8217;t have to fight all of it. Just stop going blind.<br><br>That&#8217;s it for today, enjoy your weekend.<br><br>See you next Saturday.</p><div><hr></div><p><strong>P.S.</strong></p><p>I answer 5 questions for Indigenous leaders that don&#8217;t want to just show up to the UN:</p><ol><li><p>What&#8217;s the map I&#8217;ve been missing? <a href="https://www.indigenousun.org/t/newsletter">Weekly newsletter</a></p></li><li><p>I have a situation. What do I do with it? <a href="https://www.indigenousun.org/t/ama">Open AMA</a></p></li><li><p>What&#8217;s my next move in this process? <a href="link">Playbooks</a></p></li><li><p>What&#8217;s your read from inside right now? <a href="https://www.indigenousun.org/t/brief">Daily briefs</a></p></li><li><p>How do I actually win in today&#8217;s UN? <a href="https://www.indigenousun.org/t/workshop">Workshops</a></p></li></ol><p>I built all of this because showing up has never been enough.</p><p class="button-wrapper" data-attrs="{&quot;url&quot;:&quot;https://www.indigenousun.org/subscribe?&quot;,&quot;text&quot;:&quot;Subscribe now&quot;,&quot;action&quot;:null,&quot;class&quot;:null}" data-component-name="ButtonCreateButton"><a class="button primary" href="https://www.indigenousun.org/subscribe?"><span>Subscribe now</span></a></p><p></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Rights of Nature resolution, debunking beats responding, and your pre-written speech is not negotiating.]]></title><description><![CDATA[Brief of May 29, 2026]]></description><link>https://www.indigenousun.org/p/rights-of-nature-resolution-debunking</link><guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.indigenousun.org/p/rights-of-nature-resolution-debunking</guid><dc:creator><![CDATA[Ghazali Ohorella]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 29 May 2026 23:11:27 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://substack-video.s3.amazonaws.com/video_upload/post/199798262/62ca79bb-1ab6-4093-be0a-15f6294f3911/transcoded-174822.png" length="0" type="image/jpeg"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>What you&#8217;ll hear today:</p><ul><li><p>Why showing up to treaty negotiations with a pre-written statement and reading it is leaving money on the table and what to do instead.</p></li><li><p>Why debunking a member State's argument is always more effective than responding to it and the mental shift that makes the difference.</p></li><li><p>How to use tactical empathy in negotiations: It is not what the&#8230;</p></li></ul>
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   ]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Article 18 is broader than you think, the power of saying nothing, and why "rights holders" is not enough.]]></title><description><![CDATA[Brief of May 28, 2026]]></description><link>https://www.indigenousun.org/p/article-18-is-broader-than-you-think</link><guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.indigenousun.org/p/article-18-is-broader-than-you-think</guid><dc:creator><![CDATA[Ghazali Ohorella]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 29 May 2026 12:51:18 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://substack-video.s3.amazonaws.com/video_upload/post/199736024/76818f9e-cc4c-4890-b66e-faceb3ec5568/transcoded-38182.png" length="0" type="image/jpeg"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>What you&#8217;ll hear today:</p><ul><li><p>Why Article 18 of the Declaration does not say what most people think it says and why the real language opens far more doors.</p></li><li><p>The tactic of texting a colleague to say what you want said so that when you stay silent, the room cannot attach local communities to you.</p></li><li><p>Why "Indigenous Peoples are rights holders" is inaccurate and what "d&#8230;</p></li></ul>
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          <a href="https://www.indigenousun.org/p/article-18-is-broader-than-you-think">
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   ]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[An ethical protocol is worse than losing a vote, diplomacy is like a 3D chess, and the reparations conversation nobody is having yet.]]></title><description><![CDATA[Brief of May 27, 2026]]></description><link>https://www.indigenousun.org/p/an-ethical-protocol-is-worse-than</link><guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.indigenousun.org/p/an-ethical-protocol-is-worse-than</guid><dc:creator><![CDATA[Ghazali Ohorella]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 28 May 2026 19:14:07 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://substack-video.s3.amazonaws.com/video_upload/post/199643939/04d2df03-fb2a-4898-aecb-0b3e29e59892/transcoded-05644.png" length="0" type="image/jpeg"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>What you&#8217;ll hear today:</p><ul><li><p>Why the ethical protocol being developed inside the facilitated working group could make years of FPIC work on the ground irrelevant overnight.</p></li><li><p>Why "ethical" is a word the UN cannot codify and what happens when you try to build a rights framework around something that means different things to different people.</p></li><li><p>Why I am monitoring t&#8230;</p></li></ul>
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          <a href="https://www.indigenousun.org/p/an-ethical-protocol-is-worse-than">
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   ]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Bolivar won and didn't know what to do with it, how Vanuatu won the GA vote, and why the seed dies without the soil.]]></title><description><![CDATA[Brief of May 22, 2026]]></description><link>https://www.indigenousun.org/p/bolivar-won-and-didnt-know-what-to</link><guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.indigenousun.org/p/bolivar-won-and-didnt-know-what-to</guid><dc:creator><![CDATA[Ghazali Ohorella]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Sat, 23 May 2026 23:01:19 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://substack-video.s3.amazonaws.com/video_upload/post/198897009/dcccb8d9-f6a5-4c97-bd9c-f228d67317d1/transcoded-00001.png" length="0" type="image/jpeg"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>What you&#8217;ll hear:</p><ul><li><p>Why state building and nation building have to run in parallel and what happens when movements only do the first.</p></li><li><p>What Simon Bolivar said when someone asked him &#8220;now that we have independence, what do we do with it&#8221;.</p></li><li><p>How Vanuatu forced four amendments into one package vote and why that was a masterstroke.</p></li><li><p>How Saudi Arabia and Kuwait pulled&#8230;</p></li></ul>
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          <a href="https://www.indigenousun.org/p/bolivar-won-and-didnt-know-what-to">
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   ]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[I read the 2026 Philippines FPIC draft. 5 questions tell you if yours has the same problem. ]]></title><description><![CDATA[On reading the machinery, not the language.]]></description><link>https://www.indigenousun.org/p/5-questions-that-tell-you-whether</link><guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.indigenousun.org/p/5-questions-that-tell-you-whether</guid><dc:creator><![CDATA[Ghazali Ohorella]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Sat, 23 May 2026 07:50:45 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!auvR!,w_256,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fe98132ac-8620-4b3a-a115-2c1f75c0f511_500x500.png" length="0" type="image/jpeg"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Tabea, happy Saturday,</p><p>There&#8217;s an FPIC framework that cannot actually say no. The Philippines just published a draft of it.</p><p>A friend sent me a briefer on the 2026 FPIC rules the Philippines is drafting. The word FPIC appears throughout: Every preamble, every principle, every values statement.</p><blockquote><p><a href="https://www.lrcksk.org/_files/ugd/dc2292_e664bb50826d43479f107156e693ea4f.pdf">Briefer on the Draft 2026 Rules and Procedure on the Conduct of Free and Prior Informed Consent (FPIC)  May 2026 </a></p></blockquote><p>It&#8217;s a long doc, but I read it for you. </p><p>The word survived every section. The authority to refuse got moved somewhere else.<br><br>This is what <strong>Consent Theater</strong> looks like. The language of protection stays in place. The machinery underneath gets quietly redesigned. The Indigenous Peoples concerned enter a process that looks like consent and exit with a decision that was made somewhere else.</p><p>There is a name for that outcome: Managed participation.</p><h2><strong>The category trap</strong></h2><p>What we&#8217;re seeing: The draft splits projects into categories. Category A gets the full FPIC process. Categories B, C, and D go through smaller groups, aka validated elders, validation, or just paperwork review.<br><br>That sounds organized. But it does something political.<br><br>What it means: it moves the main question from &#8220;Did the People give free, prior and informed consent?&#8221; to &#8220;Which category did the government put this project in?&#8221; One person in one office makes one classification decision. That decision changes everything that follows. The People never got to weigh in.<br><br>The authority moved before the process began.<br><br>Meaning, the most important FPIC decision can happen before FPIC even starts. The category is the master switch. And tight timelines make it worse: An Indigenous Peoples needs time to understand what is being proposed, translate it, consult families, get advice from someone not paid by the project.<br><br>When the clock is running, the process favors whoever benefits from speed.<br><br>There is also a <em>Certificate of Non-Overlap.</em> If a company can argue their project sits outside Indigenous territory using property records, the FPIC process never begins. The People are not fighting for the right to decide. They are fighting to prove the decision involves them at all.</p><p>And renewal clauses treat old consent as permanent. Promises may have been broken. The river may have changed.</p><p>Young people who had no say are now adults.</p><p>Each of these, alone, looks like a detail. Together, they are a machine built to keep the project moving.</p><h2><strong>The bad table</strong></h2><p>What we&#8217;re seeing: The process starts accepting only certain leaders. Only certain voices. A smaller group than the Indigenous Peoples themselves would recognize as legitimate.<br><br>The point is that the process must come from the People, through their own systems.<br><br>What it means: A small table is easier to manage. It is easier to pressure 5 people than 500. It is easier to get a clean record when only a few people were in the room.</p><p>You do not have to remove the Indigenous Peoples from the process.</p><p>You just redefine who counts as <em>the</em> Indigenous Peoples. If someone else picks who can say yes, the answer is already shaped. And you do not have to say no outright. You just change who gets to say yes. The rest follows.</p><h2><strong>The paper trail</strong></h2><p>What we&#8217;re seeing:  A sign-in sheet. A meeting. A signature. A Memorandum of Agreement.</p><p>None of that is consent.</p><p>Governments love documentation because it can be filed, stamped, and defended later. But Indigenous decision-making is not always built for that. It might need silence, ceremony, separate clan discussions. Women&#8217;s voices. Sacred knowledge. Time for young people to be heard.<br><br>When the form becomes more important than what actually happened, the record replaces reality. People end up fighting paperwork instead of making decisions. The official record can carry more weight than what actually occurred in the room.</p><h2><strong>The global pattern</strong></h2><p>The Philippines is one example. But, this playbook runs across climate finance, carbon markets, biodiversity rules, transition minerals, and conservation projects.<br><br>Wherever Indigenous land and resources are involved, the same moves show up.<br><br>Meaning, the document always arrives with strong language. Customary law is named. Cultural integrity is in there. Non-diminution of rights is cited. Indigenous participation is mentioned throughout.<br><br>And then you look at the decision points.<br><br>The principles say the right things. The schedules quietly move those points. A policy can have FPIC on every page and still make FPIC harder to use. It can name Indigenous Peoples in the principles and narrow who can act for them in the procedures.<br><br>The pattern I&#8217;m seeing: Include the language, change the machinery.<br><br>It can protect consent in the values and crush the timeline in the rules. It can honor customary law in the preamble and limit it the moment an outsider is involved. Reading only the values section is box-ticking. Do what I do: Read the operating system.</p><h2><strong>Check the CLOCK</strong></h2><p>The answer to &#8220;does this FPIC framework work?&#8221; is not in the principles. It is in five control points. Can FPIC stop the project? Slow it down? Can the Indigenous Peoples get independent advice, pause a contaminated process, take back authority, use their own law when something goes wrong?</p><p>Those questions tell you whether FPIC has any teeth. The CLOCK tells you why it does or does not.</p><blockquote><p><strong>C &#8212; Who puts the project in a category?</strong><br>That category decides what kind of consent process the People get.</p><p><strong>L &#8212; Who picks which leaders get a seat?</strong><br>That list can cut out the exact voices that would say no.</p><p><strong>O &#8212; Who writes down what happened?</strong><br>The written version can become more powerful than what actually occurred.</p><p><strong>C</strong> <strong>&#8212; Who controls how fast this moves?</strong><br>Speed favors whoever benefits from a quick result.</p><p><strong>K &#8212; Who wins when this moves fast?</strong></p></blockquote><p>Tis means, if one party controls all five, what you have is managed clearance. Smoother. Better documented. Harder to fight. But clearance.<br><br>If the answer to most of those is no, you are looking at administrative clearance with Indigenous language on top. Call it what it is.</p><p>Watch the machinery. Always.</p><h2><strong>Before you go</strong></h2><p>Now, before you might be lik most people that read the values section and stop. They find the FPIC reference, confirm it is there, mark the document compliant, and move on. The machinery gets no attention until something goes wrong. But, by then, the road is built.<br><br>The site is disturbed. The complaint process has confirmed that everything was done correctly. Box-ticking cost the People something they will not get back.</p><p>So, I would say&#8230;check the CLOCK before you read any FPIC framework.<br><br>Who puts it in a category. Who picks the leaders. Who writes the record. Who controls the speed. Who wins when it moves fast.<br><br>If you cannot answer all five, you have not read the policy. You have read the policy&#8217;s opinion of itself. Five questions. 30 minutes. More useful than the entire principles section combined.<br><br>My question to you: <strong>What is one FPIC process where you don&#8217;t know who controls those five points?</strong><br><br>Hit reply and tell me. I read every response.<br><br>If not, see you next Saturday!</p><div><hr></div><p><strong>P.S.</strong></p><p>If this gave you a clearer view of the procedural map, do four things:</p><ol><li><p>Forward this to one person in your network who needs to see it.</p></li><li><p>Subscribe to The Indigenous Diplomat. Its free.</p></li><li><p>Upgrade to Team if you want the daily Brief from inside the rooms where these moves are being made.</p></li><li><p>Reply with what you are watching, what&#8217;s on your radar.</p></li></ol>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[They told me "I see you fucking everywhere," why all politics are domestic, and the closing plenary is never as chaotic as it looks.]]></title><description><![CDATA[Brief of May 21, 2026]]></description><link>https://www.indigenousun.org/p/they-told-me-i-see-you-fucking-everywhere</link><guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.indigenousun.org/p/they-told-me-i-see-you-fucking-everywhere</guid><dc:creator><![CDATA[Ghazali Ohorella]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 22 May 2026 20:52:40 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://substack-video.s3.amazonaws.com/video_upload/post/198882474/033ea7f7-6749-46f0-8895-3c7b73fda847/transcoded-159069.png" length="0" type="image/jpeg"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>What you&#8217;ll hear:</p><ul><li><p>Why I show up to resolutions that have nothing to do with Indigenous Peoples and what one hostile delegate said that confirmed I am doing the right thing.</p></li><li><p>Why the ICJ resolution vote last night was not chaotic. It was choreographed. And how to read it.</p></li><li><p>Why Obama flew Air Force One into COP21, told the world it happened because of American&#8230;</p></li></ul>
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   ]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[The right to development warns you not to do this, why 80% of your UN work is capacity building, and I'm publishing my second brain.]]></title><description><![CDATA[Brief of May 20, 2026]]></description><link>https://www.indigenousun.org/p/the-right-to-development-warns-you</link><guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.indigenousun.org/p/the-right-to-development-warns-you</guid><dc:creator><![CDATA[Ghazali Ohorella]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 21 May 2026 14:28:02 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://substack-video.s3.amazonaws.com/video_upload/post/198613639/0c1b1fa5-f365-49e7-a5fb-f215c9b1899d/transcoded-05491.png" length="0" type="image/jpeg"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<div class="poll-embed" data-attrs="{&quot;id&quot;:515961}" data-component-name="PollToDOM"></div><p>What you&#8217;ll hear today:</p><ul><li><p>Three traps Indigenous Peoples will fall into if they pursue a convention on their rights, based on what the right to development trajectory actually shows.</p></li><li><p>Why a treaty is not automatically an upgrade and how it can give governments an exit ramp from implementing what already exists.</p></li><li><p>Why 80% of your engagement with any multilateral&#8230;</p></li></ul>
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   ]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Dropping the WHO work, principles are half a thing, strategy vs architecture, and why I am publishing my second brain.]]></title><description><![CDATA[Brief of May 19, 2026]]></description><link>https://www.indigenousun.org/p/dropping-the-who-work-principles</link><guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.indigenousun.org/p/dropping-the-who-work-principles</guid><dc:creator><![CDATA[Ghazali Ohorella]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Wed, 20 May 2026 09:01:46 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://substack-video.s3.amazonaws.com/video_upload/post/198530046/69463954-c1c4-4f27-b2cc-070461406973/transcoded-153724.png" length="0" type="image/jpeg"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>What you&#8217;ll hear today:</p><ul><li><p>Why the Indigenous Santa Marta declaration is a good example of what not to do: Principles without a single piece of machinery attached.</p></li><li><p>The difference between machinery, strategy, and principles and why conflating them inside your own team is a silent killer.</p></li><li><p>How I structure a Notion second brain for each negotiation stream: object&#8230;</p></li></ul>
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   ]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[5 questions to test your FPIC process, why FPIC in other rooms means consultation not consent, and missing a deadline in front of everyone.]]></title><description><![CDATA[Brief of May 18, 2026]]></description><link>https://www.indigenousun.org/p/5-questions-to-test-your-fpic-process</link><guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.indigenousun.org/p/5-questions-to-test-your-fpic-process</guid><dc:creator><![CDATA[Ghazali Ohorella]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Tue, 19 May 2026 11:36:54 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://substack-video.s3.amazonaws.com/video_upload/post/198393092/6f88dcd2-478a-4dfe-bba2-f572825e1ced/transcoded-00001.png" length="0" type="image/jpeg"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>What you&#8217;ll hear today:</p><ul><li><p>Five questions I asked when I encountered this Philippines&#8217; FPIC process: Who categorizes the project, who picks the leaders, who writes what happened, who controls the speed, who wins when it moves fast.</p></li><li><p>Why if one party controls all five answers, what you have is managed participation not consent.</p></li><li><p>Why FPIC in climate rooms can mea&#8230;</p></li></ul>
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   ]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[6 wins. 0 rule changes.]]></title><description><![CDATA[On the courtroom rule that locks us out, the Disneyland fantasy that wastes your time, and the walk-around that already works.]]></description><link>https://www.indigenousun.org/p/6-wins-0-rule-changes</link><guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.indigenousun.org/p/6-wins-0-rule-changes</guid><dc:creator><![CDATA[Ghazali Ohorella]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Sat, 16 May 2026 08:10:02 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!auvR!,w_256,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fe98132ac-8620-4b3a-a115-2c1f75c0f511_500x500.png" length="0" type="image/jpeg"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Tabea, happy Saturday,</p><p>You&#8217;re sitting in a UN session. <br><br>Or watching a court rule on Indigenous land from 6,000 miles away. <br><br>And you can feel the wall. The procedural wall that keeps Indigenous Peoples out of the room where decisions about our land actually get made. Most delegates, when they hit that wall, do one of two things. </p><ol><li><p>They start campaigning to break it down. </p></li><li><p>Or they go quiet because the system feels rigged. Both responses kill the work.</p></li></ol><p>I&#8217;ve negotiated 60 UN decisions a year for the last years here in Geneva. I helped secure the LCIPP-FWG without a treaty amendment. Not by breaking down a wall. By walking around it.</p><p>And that&#8217;s the counter-intuitive thing you can do too. <br><br>We didn&#8217;t get the Permanent Forum by rewriting the UN Charter. We didn&#8217;t get UNDRIP that way either. Every mechanism Indigenous Peoples have at the UN exists because someone walked around a wall instead of trying to break it. The wins that feel small are the wins that compound.</p><p>This week, I&#8217;ll show you 6 walk-arounds that have already been used. The trap to avoid. And the one move that has built every UN seat we have.</p><h2><strong>The wall is in the rulebook</strong></h2><p>Right now, judges at the World Court are deciding who controls the Essequibo region of Guyana. 313,175 people live there. 9 of them are Indigenous Peoples. Guyana on one side. Venezuela on the other.</p><p>Nobody from those 9 nations at the bar.<br>Nobody on the bench.<br>Nobody in the pleadings.</p><p>Why? Article 34 of the ICJ Statute. One sentence:</p><div class="callout-block" data-callout="true"><p style="text-align: center;"><em><strong>Only states may be parties in cases before the Court</strong></em></p></div><p>That is the wall.</p><p>Not bias. Not a bad judge. Not Guyana&#8217;s foreign ministry. The rulebook itself locks the door. We can&#8217;t file. We can&#8217;t intervene. We can&#8217;t appear. The only way an Indigenous nation gets into a contentious ICJ case is through a state. Either the state we&#8217;re fighting with. Or a sympathetic state somewhere else.</p><p>Now add the procedural rule called <em>non ultra petita</em>. The Court rules only on what is asked. Guyana asked about the 1899 boundary. Venezuela asked the same question from the other side. Neither asked about the rights of those 9 Indigenous nations.</p><p>So the Court will not rule on those rights. The operative paragraphs follow the pleadings. Not the people on the land.</p><p>That&#8217;s a load of BS in moral terms.</p><p>It&#8217;s also exactly how the system was designed.</p><h2><strong>Essequibo is not the story</strong></h2><p>If you are reading this from Saami-land, this matters to you.</p><p>If you are reading this from West Papua, the Pacific, the Arctic, the Amazon, the Congo Basin, the Sahel, this matters to you too.</p><p>Every time two states fight at the World Court over Indigenous lands, the same wall stands. The same rulebook. The same outcome. The border moves. The people on the land deal with what is left.</p><p>Essequibo is not unusual. It is the visible version of what is happening underneath dozens of cases right now.</p><p>I want you to see this clearly so you stop being surprised when it lands on us.</p><h2><strong>The fantasy that eats you alive</strong></h2><p>Here is what most Indigenous delegates do when they see a wall like Article 34.1.</p><p>They try to break the wall.</p><div class="callout-block" data-callout="true"><p style="text-align: center;"><strong>&#8220;Then we need to amend the Statute.&#8221;</strong></p></div><p>No. We. Do. Not.</p><p>Amending the ICJ Statute requires the same process as amending the UN Charter. Two thirds of the General Assembly. Ratification by two thirds of member states. Including all five permanent members of the Security Council.</p><p>It has happened twice in 80 years.</p><p>It will not happen so that you can sleep better at night.</p><p>The instinct to demand a Statute amendment is what I call a high-ceiling, zero-floor move. The ceiling is huge. The floor is zero. You spend 30 years organizing for an outcome that never arrives.</p><p>The smarter game is to look at where states have already moved Indigenous Peoples into ICJ proceedings without touching Article 34.</p><p>Because they have.</p><h2><strong>6 walk-arounds already on the record</strong></h2><p>I did not invent any of this. These are existing precedents. None require a Statute amendment.</p><ol><li><p><strong>Advisory opinions instead of contentious cases.</strong> The climate AO led by Vanuatu authorized the Melanesian Spearhead Group to participate. A sub-regional Indigenous-majority body filed written statements and appeared at oral hearings. Article 66 is wider than Article 34.</p></li><li><p><strong>Co-authored pleadings.</strong> Vanuatu&#8217;s Attorney General went to Tanna Island to gather first-hand accounts from communities. Then wrote them into the state&#8217;s submission. State holds the pen. Indigenous testimony fills the page.</p></li><li><p><strong>Indigenous counsel on the legal team.</strong> Vanuatu&#8217;s lead counsel was Julian Aguon. Chamorro attorney. Indigenous jurisprudence built the strategy. You do not change the rulebook. You change who the state hires.</p></li><li><p><strong>The General Assembly question itself.</strong> When the GA referred Western Sahara to the Court in 1974, the question used the phrase &#8220;the indigenous population of the Territory.&#8221; That phrasing carried into the 1975 Advisory Opinion because it was in the question.</p></li><li><p><strong>Parallel proceedings at regional human rights courts.</strong> The Inter-American Court has the Awas Tingni line. Indigenous Peoples are parties. Not amici. Parties. The African Court has similar openings.</p></li><li><p><strong>Amicus submissions through Indigenous-affiliated bodies.</strong> When Mauritius and the Maldives fought over a maritime boundary, the Chagossian Committee Seychelles filed an amicus brief. A displaced Indigenous community got their position into a state versus state proceeding without being a party. Not at the ICJ. At ITLOS. But the technique transfers to any international court that accepts third-party submissions.</p></li></ol><p>6 tools. Each one is in someone&#8217;s hand right now.</p><h2><strong>Tickets to Disneyland</strong></h2><p>I have watched this play out already.</p><p>Inside the Convention on Biological Diversity, there are position papers floating around right now arguing that the answer to the IPLC conflation problem is to amend the Convention itself. Rewrite Article 8(j). Renegotiate the text. Force the 196 Parties to legally separate Indigenous Peoples from local communities at treaty level.</p><p>Whoever wrote those papers lives in Disneyland.</p><p>The CBD entered into force in 1993. Amending it requires consensus among the same 196 Parties who spent 30 years welding &#8220;IPLC&#8221; together in the first place. The amendment is not happening.</p><p>But here is what is happening.</p><p>A glossary.</p><p>Not an amendment. A glossary attached to the Convention. A subsidiary instrument that identifies Indigenous Peoples and local communities separately. With the legal weight of a COP decision behind it.</p><p>No treaty reopening. No 196-Party consensus on the text. A procedural move that delivers the same legal distinction the amendment crowd has been chasing for two decades.</p><p>That is the lesson.</p><blockquote><h3><strong>When the wall is too high, you do not climb it. <br>You walk around it.</strong></h3></blockquote><p>The glossary is a walk-around. The 6 ICJ routes are walk-arounds. None of them require permission from the system to start.</p><p>The other response to a wall is worse than the fantasy. People go quiet. They read a piece like this. Conclude the system is rigged. Stop tracking ICJ cases altogether.</p><p>The Court becomes background noise. State versus state. Nothing to do with us.</p><p>Both responses kill the work.</p><h2><strong>Before you go</strong></h2><p>We did not get the Permanent Forum by rewriting the UN Charter.</p><p>We did not get UNDRIP by rewriting the UDHR either.</p><p>We did not get EMRIP, the Indigenous Peoples Platform, or the Indigenous Peoples placard at the HRC by rewriting any treaty.</p><p>Every mechanism Indigenous Peoples have at the UN exists because someone walked around a wall instead of trying to break it.</p><p>The wins that feel small are the wins that compound.</p><p>That is the move.</p><p>My question to you: <strong>What is the biggest thing slowing your work down right now?</strong></p><p>Hit reply and tell me. I read every response.</p><p>If not, see you next Saturday!</p><div><hr></div><p><strong>P.S.</strong></p><p>If this gave you a clearer view of the procedural map, do four things:</p><ol><li><p>Forward this to one person in your network who needs to see it.</p></li><li><p>Subscribe to The Indigenous Diplomat. Its free.</p></li><li><p>Upgrade to Team if you want the daily Brief from inside the rooms where these moves are being made.</p></li><li><p>Reply with what you are watching, what&#8217;s on your radar.</p></li></ol>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[How FPIC gets killed in the Philippines, how a community bought a Ferrari with carbon money, and the ILC paragraph most people missed.]]></title><description><![CDATA[Brief of May 16, 2026]]></description><link>https://www.indigenousun.org/p/how-fpic-gets-killed-in-the-philippines</link><guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.indigenousun.org/p/how-fpic-gets-killed-in-the-philippines</guid><dc:creator><![CDATA[Ghazali Ohorella]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 15 May 2026 23:39:07 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://substack-video.s3.amazonaws.com/video_upload/post/197931071/31970776-5bbd-402b-bb46-c095a77f56ad/transcoded-00001.png" length="0" type="image/jpeg"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>What you&#8217;ll hear today:</p><ul><li><p>How a draft FPIC framework from the Philippines turns consent into a classification ladder with categories that bypass full consent.</p></li><li><p>Why the global pattern is not denying rights but engineering them out through procedure, timelines, and administrative clearance.</p></li><li><p>Why you must link FPIC to self-determination one hundred percent of the&#8230;</p></li></ul>
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