A/HRC/9/9 page 7 19. This section provides a brief synthesis of the sources and general content of existing international standards that affirm and promote the rights of indigenous peoples. These sources include, in addition to the Declaration, international instruments not specific to indigenous peoples and human rights norms of general applicability, especially as applied by authoritative human rights bodies and mechanisms when addressing indigenous issues, and the International Labour Organization conventions concerning indigenous peoples.3 A. Instruments not specific to indigenous peoples and human rights norms of general applicability 20. To be sure, indigenous individuals and peoples hold the same rights that are recognized to all individuals and peoples. Article 1 of the Declaration explicitly restates this basic principle, by affirming that “indigenous peoples have the right to the full enjoyment, as a collective or as individuals, of all human rights and fundamental freedoms as recognized in the Charter of the United Nations, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and international human rights law”. From this perspective, all general human rights principles and norms apply equally to indigenous peoples, and are to be interpreted and applied with regard to the specific historical, cultural, social and economic circumstances of these peoples. 21. This approach has long been taken by international bodies and mechanisms in their authoritative interpretation of universal or regional instruments and human rights norms of general applicability. United Nations treaty bodies have significantly contributed to the common normative understanding of the rights of indigenous peoples in their application of the human rights treaties to which they respectively are attached. They have done so through evaluation of State party reports, complaint procedures, or issuance of interpretive comments or recommendations. 22. Since the late 1980s, the Human Rights Committee has taken a leading role in developing a body of jurisprudence concerning the rights of indigenous peoples under several provisions of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), including the rights to privacy and to family, and, especially, the rights of persons belonging to ethnic, religious or linguistic minorities. The Committee’s general comment No. 23 (1994) on article 27 of ICCPR advances a broad interpretation of the international norm of cultural integrity in the context of indigenous peoples, understanding that norm to encompass all aspects of indigenous culture including rights 3 An initial survey of the international and domestic standards regarding the rights of indigenous peoples was provided by the first report of the Special Rapporteur to the Commission on Human Rights. E/CN.4/2002/97, paras. 6-33. This survey was subsequently supplemented by the Special Rapporteur, with a particular emphasis on processes of domestic legal and constitutional reform, judicial decisions, and the practice of international human rights bodies. See E/CN.4/2006/78, paras. 7-13.