OTTAWA (Reuters) - Canada said on Monday it wanted the United Nations to delay a vote on a key draft treaty enshrining the rights of indigenous peoples, a document which has already taken 20 years to put together.

Political opponents accused Canada’s Conservative government of trying to sabotage the treaty, which is supposed to be adopted soon by the U.N’s new Human Rights Council in Geneva.

But Ottawa, which said the treaty could wreck talks on granting its native Indians control of land and resources, said it wanted two more years of discussions.

“We think the text that has been put …

Here are two reports the United Nations have released about Canada:

Canada ranked low in UN native report
Last Updated Mon, 11 Apr 2005 19:33:32 EDT
CBC News

GENEVA - Canada’s high ranking on the United Nations’ human development scale would dramatically drop if the country were judged solely on the economic and social well-being of its First Nations people.

According to a new UN report, Canada would be placed 48th out of 174 countries if judged on those criteria.

The low position is a significant drop from Canada’s usual top 10 ranking on the UN’s human development scale. …

I’ve been wondering about this for quite some time now, but never took the time to seriously look at the various international courts, their roles, whether or not people can submit cases to them, etc.

Since Carver brought it up recently, I thought we should open it up for discussion

International Criminal Court
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The International Criminal Court (ICC) was established in 2002 as a permanent tribunal to prosecute individuals for genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes, as defined by several international agreements, most prominently the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. The ICC is designed to …

MNN. March 16, 2006. On March 10, 2006, the United Nations Committee for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination found that the United States was denying the Western Shoshone people “their rights to own, develop, control and use their land and resources”. They warned the U.S. to respect their obligations according to the Convention”. The U. S. was urged to “freeze”, “desist” and “stop” their actions against the Western Shoshone and abide by the Committee’s “Early Warning and Urgent Action Procedure”.

The Western Shoshone land base covers approximately 60 million acres, stretching …

(In this article William Schabas is reviewing Marlies Glasius, The International Criminal Court: A Global Civil Society Achievement, Routledge, 2006)

Almost eight years since it was established with the adoption of the Rome Statute, the International Criminal Court continues to gain inexorable momentum, surpassing the expectations of even its keenest supporters. In November 2005 it reached the important threshold of one hundred member states. Back in 1998, when the Statute was adopted following a dramatic and unprecedented diplomatic conference, it was thought it would take a decade to reach the magic number of sixty member states required for the court …

Native Group Takes Land Dispute to UN, by Haider Rizvi

UNITED NATIONS, Jan 26 (IPS) - Feeling cheated and betrayed by Washington for nearly 150 years, a Native American tribe is now looking to the United Nations for help in protecting its ancestral lands.

“Where else do we go?” Carrie Dann, a leader of the Shoshone people of the United States, told IPS in an interview about why her people have gone to the U.N. to demand justice.

Dann and other Shoshone leaders maintain that the U.S. government has used a series of illegal tactics to gain control of their ancestral lands, including …

Posted originally by Joan Russow (PhD), Global Compliance Research Project on www.pej.org

US MILITARISM AND US CONTRIBUTION TO GLOBAL INSECURITY

The US Ballistic missile scheme and many other actions by the US, and other states, by corporations, by institutions, and individuals have provoked directly or indirectly conflict around the world.

Time to condemn: the following are 52+ actions, primarily those of the US administration and US corporations but aided and abetted by institutions and individuals, that have to be addressed if the global community is to eliminate global insecurity and to be able to promote true security: common security.

(i) engaged in covert …