E/CN.4/2006/78 page 13 private individuals, greater compliance-monitoring functions, special bodies for the protection of indigenous peoples, sufficient financial resources, expansion of their geographical coverage to indigenous regions, recruitment of indigenous staff, strengthening of investigation, legislative initiative and powers of attorney, support for customary law and access to justice, and coordination with indigenous movements. 48. One of the recurrent topics in the conversations the Special Rapporteur had with many indigenous communities and organizations was the inadequacy of the consultation and participation mechanisms available to them. One example: in many cases of decisions taken by Governments to undertake development projects, explore or exploit natural resources, amend existing legislation or apply various administrative measures, the indigenous communities directly or indirectly affected often complain that they are not taken into account and that their rights are ignored or set aside. When consultation mechanisms do exist they are considered to be insufficiently participatory and transparent or ineffective in terms of results obtained. 49. Many complaints also refer to the lack, inadequacy or inefficiency of mechanisms for evaluating and monitoring the application of national and international human rights standards in the implementation of development projects and programmes or legislation that directly or indirectly affects indigenous peoples, their lands, territories, resources and environment, their sacred places and their cultural environment. 50. In this regard, there have been frequent reports of human rights violations committed sometimes by transnational corporations operating in indigenous regions. The Special Rapporteur has addressed some cases in his various reports to this Commission. It is not only politic for these corporations to comply to the letter with the pertinent national and international standards, but it is important for an international code of conduct to be drawn up and be made binding on such corporations when they operate in the indigenous regions. Protection provided by the international system 51. The indigenous peoples have had increasing recourse to the protection mechanisms of the international system in order to claim their rights, thus establishing a new circle of good practices which brings together indigenous peoples, States and international mechanisms, but does not always obtain satisfactory results. The Special Rapporteur has reviewed several of these mechanisms and discusses some cases and significant results below. 52. The Human Rights Committee has frequently addressed problems besetting the indigenous peoples, pointing out that the right of self-determination of peoples, enshrined in article 1 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, protects the indigenous peoples’ right to their own traditional lands and resources and that the unilateral extinction of those rights constitutes a violation of that article. Regarding article 27 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the Committee has examined cases in the United States of America, Canada and Tahiti (France). The Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination has also spoken out on the violations of the rights of indigenous peoples by unilateral actions on the part of the United States of America (case of the Western Shoshone) and of Maori rights violated by recent New Zealand legislation (see E/CN.4/2006/78/Add.3).