Message from the Editorial Collective

Welcome to the first issue of Indigenous Rights Quarterly.

Indigenous Rights Quarterly (IRQ) is being published at a time when the rights of indigenous peoples are all set to be a part of international human rights law. On 29 June 2006, the Draft Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples was adopted by the UN Human Rights Council and the UN General Assembly is expected to consider it at its forthcoming 61st session. For too long, indigenous peoples have been considered as peoples/issues of concerns for the anthropologists and the sociologists only. Therefore, mainstreaming, a favourite buzzword in the lexicon of human rights, has not been commonly used in the context of the rights of indigenous peoples.

Across the world, indigenous peoples are on the lowest rung of the society. Many indigenous communities have yet not been touched by telephone and telegraph, leave alone technologies of modern day.  At the same time, it is also a fact that the use of fax machines has almost become minimal. At the press of a button, entire global community can be communicated. Information comes in plenty and becomes old within a short period.

In this era where monthly magazines are almost out of fashion, if not circulation, is there any added value of Indigenous Rights Quarterly?

Obviously, in this era of information overload where common people are citizen journalists; activists are bloggers; yahoogroups/google groups are the  debating and consultation forums, and mainstream news agencies like Reuters' AlterNet, BBC's tribe, Inter Press Service's new focus on indigenous peoples, the UN's Reliefweb  etc provide latest dispatches on crises, Indigenous Rights Quarterly cannot simply be another source of primary news on indigenous issues or discussion forum on specific thematic issues, communities, regions or a medium to report the activities of AITPN.  Therein also lies IRQ's strength.

Even without the deadlines of media, issues covered in the IRQ must have certain contemporariness. IRQ must cater to the interests of myriad readers - indigenous peoples, indigenous support groups, media personnel, government officials, diplomats, NGO activists, academics, students or lay readers etc. It must provide new ways to think about and understand the trends and patterns of violations of rights, policies, programmes, laws and court judgements etc affecting indigenous peoples worldwide. There is space for incisive and provocative commentary with clear, concise and accurate contents. Through Indigenous Rights Quarterly, we at the AITPN, will continue to address the thorniest debates on indigenous issues not only with the familiarity of indigenous peoples but also from the critical distance of an impartial observer.

For AITPN, to even remotely suggest that IRQ heralds the arrival of THE MAGAZINE on indigenous issues would of course be preposterous. It is essentially another forum - of the indigenous peoples, for the indigenous peoples and by the indigenous peoples - to participate, agitate, consolidate, articulate and advance the rights of indigenous peoples. If critical indigenous issues are given sufficient illumination, context, insight, analysis, may be the decision makers/policy makers across the world would do something to ensure the rights of the indigenous peoples.