A BRIEF HISTORY & TIMELINE OF DDRIP

At the top, there is the UN General Assembly, which will eventually adopt the final text. (The UN Security Council is above that, but they don't enter into this process). Then ECOSOC (the UN Economic and Social Council) is underneath that, and then comes the UN Commission on Human Rights under ECOSOC (these are all governmental bodies and states are the members). Under the Commisson on Human Rights is the Subcommission (until a few years ago it was called the Subcommission on the Prevention of Discrimination and the Protection of Minorities, now it's called the Subcommission for the Protection of Human Rights. That's the last body that approved the current text of the Declaration (that why its often called the "Subcommission Text"). It was actually drafted in another body (also an "expert" body) that comes under it, the Working Group on Indigenous Populations. Both of these expert bodies formally approved the current text in 1994 (the WGIP meets in July and the Subcommission in August) as the "minimum standard". And that was the basis upon which Indigenous Peoples could agree to it at the end of the WGIP process, as it was a process of drafting, negotiating and compromise over 12 years in the WGIP between states, experts and a large number of Indigenous Peoples to produce the text we have now. The Subcommission then passed it on to be considered by the CHR, the next step up, which considered it for the first time in its session in 1995 (6 weeks in March and April). The CHR deliberately did not discuss the content there, but instead created the current "Intersessional Ad hoc open ended Working Group" (the IWSGDD we call it) in a resolution called 95/32 to "elaborate" (a fairly ambivalent word open to several interpretations) the Declaration. 95/32 specified that the Subcommission text would be the basis of the discussions, and created a provision and process for the participation of Indigenous Peoples on a broader level that than at the CHR itself. This Working Group, which operates based on consensus between states and Indigenous Peoples (a principle which Indigenous Peoples fought for and won in the "walk out" during the 1997 session) has now met for 10 years and has come to agreement on the adoption of only 2 of the 45 articles (5 and 43), neither of which use the term "Indigenous Peoples".