A/64/338 40. The protracted negotiations that stretched over two and a half decades and ended with the adoption of the United Nations Declaration on 13 September 2007 engaged States, indigenous peoples and independent experts in an extended multilateral discussion that was central to the emergence, internationally, of a common body of opinion on the rights of indigenous peoples. Notably, while influenced by discussions within the United Nations around the initiative to develop an indigenous rights declaration, the development of ILO Convention (No. 169) concerning Indigenous and Tribal Peoples in Independent Countries, building on the rights set forth in its predecessor ILO Convention (No. 107) of 1957, contributed, in turn, to the process that finally led to the adoption of the Declaration. 41. The General Assembly adopted the United Nations Declaration in its resolution 61/295 by an overwhelming majority of Member States: 143 voting in favour, 4 against and 11 abstaining. While the explanatory statements of the four States that voted against the adoption of the Declaration (Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United States) showed disagreement with the wording of specific articles or concerns with the process of adoption, they also expressed a general acceptance of the core principles and values that it advanced. 42. Despite its initial vote, in 2009 Australia officially endorsed the Declaration and, in a widely circulated statement, committed to fully implement the standards contained therein. This is a welcome development in Australia’s policies towards indigenous peoples, which the Special Rapporteur noted in a press release issued jointly with the Chairpersons of the expert mechanism and the Permanent Forum in April 2009. Colombia, which had abstained in the vote on the Declaration, sent a letter, through the Deputy Minister of Multinational Affairs, to the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights on 20 April 2009 expressing its support for the Declaration and the principles contained therein and subscribing to the concepts of equality, respect for diversity and non-discrimination that constitute the foundation of the Declaration. It is hoped that States which abstained or voted against adoption may take similar stances. B. General content and character 43. The basic normative justification of the Declaration is stated in the sixth preambular paragraph, which states that “indigenous peoples have suffered from historic injustices as a result of, inter alia, their colonization and dispossession of their lands, territories and resources, thus preventing them from exercising, in particular, their right to development in accordance with their own needs and interests”. The Declaration’s preamble thus stresses the essentially remedial purpose of the instrument. Far from affirming special rights per se, the Declaration aims at repairing the ongoing consequences of the historical denial of the right to selfdetermination and other basic human rights affirmed in international instruments of general applicability. 44. The Declaration affirms, in article 3, the right of indigenous peoples to self determination, in terms that restate the common provisions of article 1 of the two 1966 international human rights covenants, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. Reflecting the state of contemporary international law in relation to this principle as well as the demands of indigenous peoples themselves, the affirmation 14 09-50281