A/68/317 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 against a backdrop of universal human rights. 72. It is precisely because the human rights of indigenous groups have been denied, with disregard for their particular characteristics, that there is a need for the Declaration. In other words, the Declaration exists because indigenous peoples have been denied equality, self-determination, and related human rights, and not in order to grant them privilege over others. This remedy should not have to exist, just as the history of oppression that gives rise to it should not have been. But that history did occur, and its ongoing consequences make necessary a global remedial response that is appropriate to indigenous peoples’ particular circumstances and characteristics, which is what the Declaration represents. 4 C. The centrality of the right of self-determination 73. A centrepiece of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples is article 3, which affirms: “Indigenous peoples have the right to selfdetermination. By virtue of that right they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development.” During the more than two-decade debate that preceded the adoption of the Declaration, it was increasingly understood that self-determination is a foundational principle that anchors the constellation of indigenous peoples’ rights. 74. Yet the Declaration’s affirmation of indigenous peoples’ right to selfdetermination, and hence the force of the Declaration itself, has been blunted by the position advanced by some States that this right is different from the selfdetermination of peoples in international law. This position has served only to detract from the core consensus that is represented in the Declaration’s affirmation of self-determination for indigenous peoples and from defining the specific modalities for implementing the right. 75. The Special Rapporteur strongly disagrees with any implication that the right to self-determination of indigenous peoples, as affirmed in the Declaration, is apart from the right to self-determination that peoples generally enjoy under international law, for reasons set forth in his extensive academic writing on the subject. 5 To be sure, the right to self-determination, like other rights, gives rise to different prescriptions in different contexts, but at its core, it is the same fundamental human right for all peoples. To suggest otherwise is difficult, if not impossible, to justify within a human rights framework in which equality and non-discrimination are bedrock maxims, and is contrary to the Declaration itself, which provides, as __________________ 4 5 13-42710 For an in-depth discussion of the remedial character of the Declaration, see S. James Anaya, “Why there should not have to be a declaration on the rights of indigenous peoples”, in S. James Anaya, ed., International Human Rights and Indigenous Peoples (Aspen-Wolters Kluwer, 2011), p. 58. See, e.g., S. James Anaya, Indigenous Peoples in International Law (Oxford University Press, 2nd ed., 2004), pp. 97-128; S. James Anaya, “The right of indigenous peoples to selfdetermination in the post-declaration era”, in Claire Chartres and Rodolfo Stavenhagen, eds., Making the Declaration Work: The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (IWGIA, 2009). 19/22