A/70/301 on cigarettes, corporate income taxes and natural resources taxes, have been challenged under the fair and equal treatment clauses in international investment agreements. A tax imposed only on non-indigenous people (which can include foreign investors) could violate national treatment pro visions, for example the provisions within the United States bilateral investment treaty model. 39. The threats to the right to self-determination and self-governance posed by investment and free trade agreements compound long -standing and systemic violations of the rights of indigenous peoples. The violations have included gross and sustained assaults on the cultural integrity of indigenous peoples; the denigration and non-recognition of customary laws and governance systems; a failure to develop frameworks that allow indigenous peoples to exercise their right to development and self-governance; and practices that strip indigenous peoples of autonomy over their lands and natural resources. It is in that sense that international investment agreements are contributing to the perpetuation of colonial and postcolonial power structures that have caused the systematic racism and discrimination towards, and the marginalization and exploitation of, indigenous peoples. 40. Such unequal power relations between indigenous peoples and corporations and States also contribute to endemic levels of poverty among indigenous peoples. Indigenous peoples account for 5 per cent of the world ’s population, while representing 15 per cent of those living in poverty. As many as 33 per cent of all people living in extreme rural poverty globally are from indigenous communities. Those figures are particularly alarming given the wealth of natural resources that are located within indigenous territories. That degree of poverty is a viola tion of indigenous peoples’ rights to development, as well as of their economic and social rights to an adequate standard of living, housing, food, water, health and education. 41. The violations of indigenous peoples’ rights to self-determination and other economic and social rights are strongly linked to indigenous peoples’ historical experiences of marginalization, dispossession from and environmental destruction of their ancestral lands and lack of self-determination over development pathways. The impacts of investment and free trade agreements exacerbate all of those factors. In addition, the systemic effects of such agreements, discussed below, also contribute to the causes of poverty and the denial of the right to self -determination among indigenous communities. 42. International investment agreements also have the potential to negatively affect the realization of a number of the economic and social rights of indigenous peoples. The costs borne by States in defending themselves in investor -State dispute settlement cases and in paying awards when defeated can be extremely high. That diverts public resources, which could limit the ability of States to invest in the realization of economic and social rights. International investment agreements can also drive and maintain the practice of privatizing public services and goods, including health care and water. For example, expropriation and fair and equal treatment clauses could make it prohibitively expensive for Governments to revoke private contracts for the provision of public health services. Given the private sector’s poor track record of catering to the needs of the most marginalized and vulnerable, demonstrated, for example, by the privatization of water, the impact on the economic and social rights of indigenous peoples is significant. 43. In addition, as discussed in the upcoming report of the Independent Expert on the promotion of a democratic and equitable international order, investor -State 14/24 15-12526