Advocates for the implementation of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples are counting on international pressure to overcome indifference and outright hostility by the New Zealand Government.
Human Rights Commission shared leader Julia Whaipooti and indigenous rights governance partner Dayle Takitimu are off to Geneva this week for the 17th annual session of the Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, where they will report New Zealand is backsliding on its Te Tiriti and international obligations.
Ms Takitimu says UN experts will visit Aotearoa later in the year to observe and give advice.
“There is some pressure now from that declaration being endorsed by the New Zealand Government in 2010 to actually get some points on the board in terms of implementation and move it out of that high level aspirational zone and into soemthign we can see tangibly affects the rights of Maori here in Aotearoa,” she says.
