HUMAN WRONGS WATCH

Human Wrongs Watch

By Tharanga Yakupitiyage*

UNITED NATIONS, Jan 26 2017 (IPS) – As the 10-year anniversary for the Declaration on Indigenous Rights approaches, UN indigenous rights activists came together to assess the many challenges that still remain on the ground.

Victoria Tauli-Corpuz, UN Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Credit: UN Photo/Mark Garten.

The UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, adopted in 2007, is the first of its kind to recognise and highlight the importance of indigenous rights.

“The UN Declaration is a declaration that contains the collective nature of the rights of indigenous peoples. (It) is meant to bring about remedies to kinds of historical and current injustices that indigenous people suffer,” said UN Special Rapporteur Victoria Tauli-Corpuz during a press briefing on 26 January.

Human Wrongs Watch

By Thalif Deen*

UNITED NATIONS, Jan 27 2017 (IPS) – The Republic of Ecuador, currently chair of the largest single coalition of developing countries at the United Nations, is reviving a longstanding campaign for the creation of an inter-governmental UN tax body and the elimination of tax havens and illicit financial flows.

**Map: Group of 77 countries as of 2013 | Author: Kyat02 | Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

Practicing what it preaches, Ecuador says it is the world’s first country to hold a nation-wide referendum on tax havens, scheduled to take place on February 19.