A/HRC/36/53 I. Introduction 1. In its resolution 33/13, the Human Rights Council requested the Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples to prepare a study on good practices and challenges, including discrimination, in business and in access to financial services by indigenous peoples, in particular indigenous women and indigenous persons with disabilities, and to present it to the Council at its thirty-sixth session. 2. The Expert Mechanism called for States, indigenous peoples, national human rights institutions and other stakeholders to provide information for the study. The submissions received have been made available on the Expert Mechanism website whenever permission to do so has been granted. The study also benefited from presentations made at the expert seminar on good practices and challenges for indigenous peoples’ entrepreneurship, which was held in Boulder, United States of America, from 6 to 7 March 2017, and organized by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and the University of Colorado Law School. II. A human rights-based understanding of indigenous peoples’ businesses A. Grounding indigenous peoples’ business and access to financial services within a human rights framework 3. Indigenous peoples have their own economies, including traditional livelihoods and ways of producing, selling and distributing goods or services, as well as concepts of profit, saving and sustainable use of resources. Those economies have been affected by centuries of historical injustices, most notably dispossession of lands, territories and resources that, compounded by underlying prejudiced views of indigenous peoples’ ways of life, livelihoods and knowledge systems, have undermined their business potential. 4. The systematic economic marginalization of indigenous peoples continues to the present day, including through the discrimination that they frequently face in accessing financial services or in establishing and operating their own businesses. Indigenous women, persons with disabilities and young indigenous persons are particularly affected by discrimination due to the multiple barriers that they face. 5. As restorative frameworks, the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and several other international human rights instruments guarantee rights that seek to redress the historical injustices suffered by indigenous peoples. Article 3 of the Declaration enshrines indigenous peoples’ right to freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development as an integral part of their right to self-determination. Article 23 of the Declaration provides for indigenous peoples’ right to development, including the right to determine and develop economic priorities, strategies and programmes. Those provisions underlie indigenous peoples’ right to unlock their business potential, do business as an integral part of their right to self-determination, and develop or maintain sustainable economies in their own communities, while also participating in national and regional markets if they wish. 6. The Declaration underlines the particular relevance of indigenous peoples’ access to financial services as a way to redress historical injustices and discrimination. In article 4 on self-determination, it clarifies that indigenous peoples require resources to achieve selfdetermined development. In addition, in article 39, it enshrines the right of indigenous peoples to financial and technical assistance, which should be culturally sensitive and not contribute to dependency relationships with the State, markets or financial institutions. 7. In addressing indigenous peoples’ economic marginalization, articles 21 and 22 of the Declaration provide specifically for attention to be paid to the rights of indigenous women, youth and persons with disabilities. Many indigenous peoples suffer from policies of economic forced assimilation that have subjected them to discriminatory and precarious 3