By Stephen M. Sachs, IUPUI

A number of nations, including the United States and Great Britain, have been objecting to numerous of the proposed rights in the working document for the Draft Declaration of Indigenous Rights, under discussion in Geneva, on the ground that these would be collective rights, and collective rights cannot exist because all rights are individual. The instance that since the source of all rights is in individual rights, a theory developed out of John Locke's Second Treatise on Government, that there cannon be collective rights, is a total self-contradiction. To hold that that there are no collective rights would be an admission that their states are not sovereign, that governments and international organizations have no authority, and that corporations, which by their very names are collective entities, which these same governments consider to be artificial persons that they endow with significant rights and authority, have no rights or authority.

While John Locke and these very same governments base their theories of government on individual rights, insisting the authority of collective entities is based on their protecting and enhancing individual rights, and that that authority is limited by individual rights, they clearly believe that collective entities are necessary to give meaning to rights, and that the members of those collective entities have rights. Thus the very basis of their philosophies allows for the members/citizens of Indigenous Nations to come together to collectively establish the rights of their members and for Indigenous Nations, as collective entities to have authority: that is to have a set of rights. While the basis for collective authority and rights of classical liberal or Lockian theory followed by some governments is different than the basis of such rights held by others, there is in fact general agreement that these rights exist. It is time that the representatives of certain states speaking from a classical liberal position cease their ridiculous objection to their own right to speak at an international forum and begin to negotiate the real issues, so that a much needed Declaration of Indigenous Rights can be completed which will be to the benefit of all peoples.