A/68/317 I. Introduction 1. The present report is being submitted to the General Assembly by the Special Rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples pursuant to Human Rights Council resolution 21/24. This is the final report of the current Special Rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples, James Anaya, to the Assembly, as his mandate expires on 30 April 2014. 2. In the light of this, the Special Rapporteur devotes the first part of the report to describing his activities since beginning his mandate, while identifying work methods and lessons learned, as well as both positive experiences and challenges in his work. He hopes that the report, in addition to providing an up-to-date account of his activities, will be of use to the next Special Rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples as she or he enters into the position, as well as to other special procedures mandate holders of the Human Rights Council as they continue to reflect on their own work methods. 3. The Special Rapporteur is specifically mandated to promote the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and consequently, he considers the Declaration to constitute the primary normative framework for carrying out all aspects of his work. The latter part of his report addresses factors that debilitate commitment to and action by States and other actors to implement the Declaration, drawing upon the Special Rapporteur’s experiences over the past years. The objective of this discussion is to advance thinking that will help overcome these debilitating factors in favour of concrete measures towards implementation. 4. The Special Rapporteur would not have been able to carry out the work described in the present report without the support of various individuals and institutions. He would like to express his gratitude to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) for its support to him during his mandate over the years. He would also like to thank the staff, consultants, researchers, and students of the support project for the Special Rapporteur on Indigenous Peoples at the University of Arizona for their assistance in all aspects of his work, and to the University of Arizona College of Law for its flexibility and accommodation of his work as Special Rapporteur. Finally, he would like to thank the numerous indigenous peoples, States, academics, and other experts who have cooperated with his mandate over the past years in the advancement of the rights of indigenous peoples around the world. II. Activities pursuant to the mandate A. Areas of work 5. From the first years of his mandate, the Special Rapporteur devoted significant attention to refining his work methods within the terms of his mandate provided by the Human Rights Council. He has tried developing work methods oriented towards building a constructive dialogue with Governments, indigenous peoples, non-governmental organizations, relevant United Nations agencies and others in order to address challenging issues and situations and build on advances already made. He hopes that future work of the mandate will be able to focus more on moving beyond reacting to denouncements of alleged human rights violations, to 13-42710 3/22