E/2007/43
E/C.19/2007/12
at the seventh session of the Permanent Forum. The Permanent Forum welcomes the
support and notes that the recommendation in paragraph 24 of the report of the
Special Rapporteur states that: “the Permanent Forum should commission a study ...
to determine whether there ought to be a shift in the focus on the protection of
indigenous traditional knowledge away from intellectual property law to protection
via customary law ... The study should consider how indigenous traditional
knowledge could be protected at an international level by utilizing customary law,
including the extent to which customary law should be reflected, thereby providing
guidance to States and, subsequently, protection at national and regional levels”. 16
The Permanent Forum would particularly welcome written submissions addressing
the above recommendation. The Permanent Forum re-appoints Mr. Dodson as
Special Rapporteur to present a follow-up study on indigenous traditional
knowledge, taking into account the written submissions, and to present the report to
the seventh session of the Permanent Forum in 2008.
146. The Permanent Forum expresses appreciation to all States, United Nations
agencies and foundations that contributed to the Trust Fund on Indigenous Issues,
including contributions for the small grants programme for the Second International
Decade of the World’s Indigenous People and the Voluntary Fund for Indigenous
Populations, and invites States, agencies and foundations to continue contributing
generously to the Funds. The Forum urges the Voluntary Fund on Indigenous
Populations to give particular support to applications from indigenous peoples from
the Pacific to participate in its seventh session in 2008. The Permanent Forum
encourages representatives of indigenous peoples’ organizations from the Pacific to
make applications to the Fund in order to the attend the seventh session of the
Permanent Forum.
147. The Permanent Forum expresses appreciation to Mr. Parshuram Tamang and
Mr. Yuri Boichenko for their draft questionnaire for United Nations agencies and
requests the secretariat of the Permanent Forum to use the questionnaire in seeking
information from agencies for its future sessions. The Permanent Forum also
supports requests from States that they receive a similar questionnaire and requests
the secretariat to carry through this request, in consultation with members of the
Permanent Forum.
148. In view of the need to actively promote implementation of its
recommendations, the Permanent Forum decides to consider, at its seventh session
in 2008, the advisability of alternating its sessions between one year of policy
recommendations and one year of monitoring recommendations.
149. The Permanent Forum reiterates the recommendation of its fourth and fifth
sessions that the Department of Peacekeeping Operations of the United Nations
Secretariat establish a policy on indigenous peoples, in consultation with indigenous
peoples.
150. The Permanent Forum recognizes that it is important that the Human Rights
Council continues to effectively address indigenous peoples’ issues as human rights
issues. The Permanent Forum decides to appoint Ms. Ida Nicolaisen and
Mr. Wilton Littlechild to undertake a study on the structures, procedures and
mechanisms that presently exist and that might be established to effectively address
the human rights situation of indigenous peoples, to arrange for indigenous
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16
07-37675
Ibid., para. 24.
25