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September 28, 2023
Co-governance a human right says UNDRIP expert
Peter Verschaffelt
Posted On September 28, 2023
Download AudioThe Human Rights Commission’s indigenous rights partner says rights to co-governance and self determination are guaranteed to Māori in the Treaty of Waitangi and affirmed in the United Nations Bill of Rights and the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
Some politicians have attacked co-governance and the declaration as favouring one race over another, but Claire Charters, who’s also a law professor at the University of Auckland, says co-governance goes to the core of concepts of equality and non-discrimination.
“We have evidence over many, many decades coming out of Harvard hat our people do better, there are better outcomes for Indigenous when Indigenous people are in control of our own governance and development so co-governance is very much a topic for the Human Rights Commission and is very much a human rights issue and a te Tiriti issue as well,” she says.
Meanwhile, both the Brian Tamaki-led Freedoms & Rights Coalition, and Julian Batchelor’s Stop Co-Governance group, are converging on Parliament today,
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