The Geneva-Bonn Playbook for Diluting Indigenous Rights
2 meetings, 2 tactics, 1 goal: Making us less political.
Getting on the SR horse again.
Last week in Geneva, during the conclusion of his interactive dialogue at the Human Rights Council, the Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples made a remark that caught my attention.
He reminded States that the term Indigenous Peoples once frightened them. At the time, it carried political connotations. Linked to sovereignty, colonization, even secession. But he argued that since the adoption of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, the concept has “shifted.” No longer a political category, he said, but a human rights one. And he framed this shift as something that helps States govern more cohesively.
I understood what he tried to say. He wanted to reassure States, to calm their fears, to create space for engagement.
But there is a danger in this framing.
At the UN, ev-er-y-thing is POLITICAL. Indigenous Peoples are not only a human rights issue. Our rights are also political. The right to self-determination. The right to self-selection. The right to governance and to take part in decision-making. These are inherently political rights, and reducing us to a human rights constituency risks flattening who we are.
A week later, in a very different UN setting, we see how this narrowing plays out in practice.
From Geneva to Bonn
At COP29, Parties adopted Decision 14/CP.29. Paragraph 15 included a soft clause:
“… encourages Parties and relevant constituted bodies, in particular the Facilitative Working Group, and representatives of workstreams under the Convention and the Paris Agreement to consider ways to further engage local communities …”
The word encourages matters. This was not a binding requirement. It was an opening. And certain States seized it.
Barely a month before COP30, funds suddenly appeared. The LCIPP Secretariat was instructed to bring 21 Party-nominated local community knowledge holders to Brazil. Alongside 21 regionally nominated Indigenous knowledge holders.
On the surface, this looked like parity. Equal numbers. Balanced voices.
But when you study the process, the truth is very different.
Two Different Constituencies
Indigenous Peoples nominate ourselves through our own regional structures. These are self-determined processes, rooted in UNDRIP and recognized in international law. We select our own representatives through Indigenous-controlled mechanisms.
Local communities? This process shows that States will choose who represents them. Party coordinators will manage their participation. The entire structure depends on external funding and last-minute organization.
Think about that for a second.
We nominate ourselves. States nominate them.
But here’s the insight everyone’s missing: “local communities” as a participation category might be entirely State-choreographed. The overnight funding, the rushed timeline, and the Party-controlled selection? It all suggests States needed to incubate this constituency. A group that looks like inclusion but operates like ventriloquism.
Two completely different constituencies. One exists through rights. The other exists through State permission.
And here lies the irony. For years, many States have insisted on conflation. They argue that Indigenous Peoples and local communities are essentially the same, often collapsed into the acronym “IPLC.” But the rush to make COP30 “inclusive” reveals the truth: Local community participation has to be entirely choreographed by Parties. Meanwhile, our participation flows from established rights and self-determined processes. The scramble to create parity only highlights how different we actually are.
The Bigger Lesson
What happened in Geneva and what is happening in Bonn are two sides of the same coin.
In Geneva, the Special Rapporteur offered reassurance that Indigenous Peoples are now primarily a human rights category, less threatening to States. In Bonn, some of those same States use that comfort to insist on conflation. As if we can be folded into the same category as local communities.
But practice betrays the narrative.
When the money comes in late and the processes are designed, the distinction emerges again. Indigenous Peoples have rights-based standing. Local communities depend on Party discretion.
This is not an argument against local communities.
It is an argument against the Parties’ insistence that Indigenous Peoples and local communities are similar, that we can be blended into one constituency. Because when they insist on that conflation, what is really being erased are the political rights of Indigenous Peoples.
The Special Rapporteur was right about one thing: The concept of Indigenous Peoples has shifted since the days when States feared it as a threat. But it hasn’t shifted into something less political. It has expanded to include both human rights and political dimensions.
But States prefer the human rights framing. It’s safer. Less threatening. And the rush to fund local community nominations while we’ve worked for decades for proper recognition? That tells you everything about which rights they’re comfortable with.
What I’m Doing (And What You Can Too)
Deconflation isn’t won by statements alone. It’s won by action.
Here’s my playbook:
I never let “IPLC” slide by unchallenged. Ideally JUST Indigenous Peoples, otherwise:
In a list?
Separate like: Indigenous Peoples, people of African descent, peasants, local communities, etc. (When about actors)
Separate like: Rights of Indigenous Peoples, as well as the rights of peasants, youth, etc. Or at the end of a list …., as well as the rights of Indigenous Peoples (When about rights)
Rephrase to “Indigenous Peoples, and local communities”
Always capitalize Indigenous Peoples, do NOT capitalize local communities (United Nations Editorial Manual updated as of 3 Nov 2022 outlines that, and the Human Rights Council “Calls upon States to apply capitalization to the term “Indigenous Peoples” in official documents and in the official languages of the United Nations, as applicable” (A/HRC/RES/60/13 OP35)
“IPLC”? follow the example of the High Seas Alliance “IP&lc” at a minimum
I anchor everything in our rights. UNDRIP as a whole, if you have to single out privisons, then Articles 3, 18, 19, and 33. Our participation is rights-based and self-determined. Not Party-dependent. Not negotiable.
I use COP30 as my proof. One constituency nominates itself. The other gets nominated by States. The system literally proves we’re different. Hard to argue with their own process.
I stay vocal. Every negotiation, every side event, every report. The more we point out these differences, the harder it becomes for States to maintain their fiction.
This isn’t about opposing local communities. It’s about defending the integrity of Indigenous Peoples as a distinct category in international law.
The work is tedious. But every time we force clarity, we protect our political existence.
Before You Go
The most dangerous framing is the one that sounds helpful.
When our Special Rapporteur describes our evolution from political actors to human rights concepts, States hear permission to ignore Article 3 of UNDRIP. Our right to self-determination.
Watch what happens at COP30. The money arriving late tells you everything. They can fund local communities overnight because it’s discretionary. But Indigenous participation requires decades of negotiation because it’s rights-based.
That difference is not bureaucratic. It’s existential.
For me, this is where diplomacy begins. I enter these spaces to build relationships, to make allies, even to make friends. Building bridges to me doesn’t mean erasing boundaries.
Indigenous Peoples are Peoples. We have existed before States. We are Peoples whose rights are Indigenous, human and political. Peoples who cannot be collapsed into another category without losing the essence of who we are.
That is my point of departure. It is the ground I stand on.
And it is why deconflation is not a technical matter. It is the line that protects who we are.
See you next week!