A/HRC/21/53 by indigenous peoples over developments affecting them and their lands, territories and resources will enable them to maintain and strengthen their institutions, cultures and traditions, and to promote their development in accordance with their aspirations and needs”. 28. Equally, regional human rights bodies have determined that the right to property and the right to non-discrimination mean that indigenous peoples’ lands, territories and resources held under indigenous law are entitled to the same level of protection and recognition as other types of property.24 The Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights has highlighted the link between cultural rights, rights to lands, territories and resources and the duty to obtain indigenous peoples’ free, prior and informed consent in relation to the taking of indigenous peoples’ lands, territories and resources 25. IV. Rights related to indigenous peoples’ languages and identity 29. In addition to the standards outlined above, the Declaration includes specific articles on indigenous peoples’ rights to their languages, supported by international instruments such as, inter alia, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. Under article 13, indigenous peoples “have the right to revitalize, use, develop and transmit to future generations their histories, languages, oral traditions, philosophies, writing systems and literatures, and to designate and retain their own names for communities, places and persons”. States are also required to ensure that indigenous peoples can understand and be understood in political, legal and administrative proceedings, where necessary through the provision of interpretation or by other appropriate means. As discussed in the Expert Mechanism’s study on education, indigenous peoples have the right under article 14 to establish institutions providing education in their own languages. Moreover, article 16 states that “indigenous peoples have the right to establish their own media in their own languages” and that States “shall take effective measures to ensure that State-owned media duly reflect indigenous cultural diversity.” Also, States “should encourage privately owned media to adequately reflect indigenous cultural diversity”. 30. ILO Convention No. 169 also includes specific rights in relation to languages, requiring that indigenous children, where practicable, be taught to read and write in their own indigenous language and that adequate measures shall be taken to preserve and promote the development and practice of the indigenous languages of the peoples concerned (art. 28). 31. The Convention on the Rights of the Child has many provisions which recognize the right of the child to education with a view to achieving this right progressively on the basis of equal opportunity, and that these rights be ensured by the State parties. 32. Language is an essential part of, and intrinsically linked to, indigenous peoples’ ways of life, culture and identities.26 Languages embody many indigenous values and concepts and contain indigenous peoples’ histories and development. They are 24 25 26 8 The Mayagna (Sumo) Awas Tingni Community v. Nicaragua (2001). Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, general comment No. 21 (2009). See Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues Expert Group Meeting on indigenous languages (2008) and associated submissions and the first International Symposium on the World’s Indigenous Languages: Canadian Heritage, Coming Together in Diversity: The Final Report of the First International Symposium on the World’s Indigenous Languages (Ottawa, Canadian Heritage, 2005), p. 41.