A/HRC/36/56 logging on Crown land. The judge relied on the Declaration (arts. 3, 8 (2) (b), 26, 28, 32 and 40), which he indicated had been adopted by Canada on 10 May 2016. 65. In the case of Hamilton Health Services Corp. v. H. before the Ontario Court of Justice (2015), the Attorney General’s decision to dialogue with the parties about an aboriginal family’s desire to use traditional medicine in treatment of their daughter’s health condition was considered consistent with article 24 of the Declaration. Also, in the 2017 case of R. v. Francis-Simms, the Ontario Court of Justice’s use of restorative justice in sentencing proceedings for an aboriginal offender in a drug-related case was consistent with articles 5 and 11 of the Declaration. 66. The Constitutional Court of Guatemala handed down a number of judgments suspending activities of hydroelectric and mining companies for lack of consultation with indigenous peoples, specifically referring to articles 32 (2) of the Declaration. 67. On 21 October 2016, the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) 57 in the Russian Federation, in the context of clarifying the meaning of article 42 of its Constitution, held that it should be understood as providing, “the complete set of natural collective rights of the indigenous people of Yakutia” and provided for their “territorial unity, socioeconomic, state, legal, national, cultural and linguistic identity”. It stated that article 42 was intended to “guarantee the preservation and rebirth” of the indigenous peoples of that Republic. It cited the Declaration as a consensus statement of inalienable rights of indigenous peoples. 68. Many of the national and regional court cases presented in the present section come from States in Latin America, the Caribbean, North America and Africa and relate, in particular, to land rights and natural resources, consultation and consent. The implementation of the cases has had varying degrees of success. In other States, there has been little or no domestic case law referring to the Declaration. The application of ILO Convention No. 169 by some States can go a long way to implementing the rights in the Declaration but does not obviate the obligation to apply the latter fully. In many States, indigenous peoples have advocated the implementation of Declaration rights through national agreements, legislation, policy and regional agreements. 69. In several countries, including Indonesia, Malaysia and the United States, 58 as well as in several regions of the Russian Federation, national human rights institutions, including Ombudsman offices, which fulfil that role in some States (e.g. Namibia), use the Declaration as a framework for monitoring the implementation of indigenous peoples’ rights at the national level. Given the often inaccessibility of the court system to indigenous peoples, those institutions are often more approachable in terms of resolving problems. Some institutions, such as those in Australia and New Zealand, include indigenous rights commissioners who are specialists on these issues, who reinforce implementation of the Declaration. 70. Legislatures also contribute to the implementation of the Declaration, including in Indonesia, where legislation on the environment recognizes implicitly certain rights of the peoples, referred to as Masyarkat Adat or Masyaraka Hukum Adat (customary societies).59 Also, in one of the Arctic regions in the Russian Federation, socio-cultural impact assessments are mandatory by law prior to undertaking industrial projects, and form part of the process of eliciting the free, prior and informed consent of indigenous peoples.60 In 2007, the Plurinational State of Bolivia enacted a law incorporating the Declaration into the country’s national legislation. Further laws were enacted in 2010 for the purposes of 57 58 59 60 16 See decision No. 4-П of the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia), Russian Federation, available in Russian from https://ks.sakha.gov.ru/uploads/ckfinder/userfiles/files/Постановление%20№%204-2016.pdf. In the United States, the Navajo Nation Human Rights Commission has cited the Declaration in cases addressing the Navajo people’s human rights to religious freedoms, sacred sites, housing, education, water, natural resource development and freedom from discrimination on the basis of race, sex, sexual orientation and gender identity. Agrarian Reform Act No. 27/2007 and Act No. 32/2010. See http://arran.no/sites/a/arran.no/files/arran_lule_anthro_expert_review_paper8_web.pdf.

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