A/HRC/36/53 much to contribute to the goal of generating employment and ensuring sustainable livelihoods.3 15. The Convention on Biological Diversity also provides recognition of the links between indigenous traditional knowledge, sustainable customary use of biological resources and its wider potential benefits. According to article 8 (j), States shall respect, preserve and maintain knowledge, innovations and practices of indigenous and local communities and promote their wider application with the approval and involvement of the holders of such knowledge, and encourage the equitable sharing of the benefits arising from the utilization of such knowledge, innovations and practices. Traditional knowledge issues cut across many domains in relation to global environmental issues, including biodiversity conservation, natural resource management, business development, use of genetic resources and climate change. 16. The Paris Agreement acknowledges the role of indigenous peoples’ traditional knowledge in addressing climate change (art. 7 (5)) and reminds States to respect, promote and consider their human rights obligations when taking action to address climate change (preamble). Indigenous peoples should therefore have a legitimate stake in climate changerelated businesses, funding and financial services. B. Indigenous peoples’ rights-based approaches to business 17. Indigenous peoples’ economic systems consist of a diversity of activities for selfdetermined development. Those activities have traditionally been mostly for subsistence and include small-scale agriculture, hunting, gathering, animal husbandry and artisanal activities such as weaving, carpentry, carving and blacksmithing. 4 The present section deconstructs indigenous peoples’ economies and businesses with a view to understanding the human rights features that make them unique and contribute to their resilience. 1. Indigenous peoples’ business as a safeguard for their right to live in dignity 18. Economic redress and empowerment of indigenous peoples and the corresponding right to undertake economic activities is not a goal in itself, but a means for indigenous peoples to attain their right to the dignity and diversity of their cultures, traditions, histories and aspirations, as guaranteed in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (art. 15). 19. The right of indigenous peoples to maintain and develop their economic systems and institutions, including the right to be secure in the enjoyment of their own means of subsistence and development, and to engage freely in all their traditional and other economic activities is enshrined in the Declaration (art. 20), which further provides that indigenous peoples deprived of their means of subsistence and development are entitled to just and fair redress (art. 20). 20. The Declaration also requires States to combat prejudice and eliminate discrimination and to promote tolerance, understanding and good relations among indigenous peoples and all other segments of society (art. 15). That applies to prejudiced views that consider indigenous peoples’ use, ownership and occupation of lands and resources as wasteful and economically unworthy. 21. Article 2 of the ILO Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention provides for indigenous peoples’ economic empowerment as a means for restoring respect for their cultures, customs, traditions and institutions. To that end, States are required to take measures to “promote the full realisation of the social, economic and cultural rights of these peoples with respect for their social and cultural identity, their customs and traditions and their institutions … assisting the members of the peoples concerned to eliminate socio3 4 See the submission from the New Zealand Human Rights Commission. Jannie Lasimbang, “Indigenous peoples and local economic development”, Global Thinking for Local Development, vol. 5 (2008). Available from http://pro169.org/res/materials/en/development/ IPs%20and%20Local%20Economic%20Development.pdf. 5