This October 14, we celebrate Indigenous Peoples' Day and the invaluable contributions of Indigenous Peoples around the world and their right to maintain, control, protect, and develop their cultural heritage. We continue the push to ensure their full enjoyment of global human rights.
The Carr Center has long engaged with Indigenous rights, with several publications and Justice Matters episodes highlighting the importance of Indigenous rights on a global scale. Below, you can explore each of these works.
(Re)Building Nations with Indigenous Governance, feat. Megan Minoka Hill
In this episode of Justice Matters, co-host Mathias Risse speaks with Megan Minoka Hill, the Senior Director of the Project on Indigenous Governance and Development and the Director of the Honoring Nations program at the Harvard Kennedy School. Together they discuss the Project on Indigenous Governance and Development, the background and major trends around Indigenous governance, the Honoring Nations program, and Hill’s membership in the Oneida nation and the structure of the tribe's governance.
A Radical Reckoning with Cultural Devastation and Its Aftermath: Reflections on Wub-e-ke-niew’s We Have the Right to Exist
Wub-e-ke-niew’s enormously unsettling book We Have the Right to Exist presents a version of Indigenous philosophical thought as an alternative way of being human in the world that creates profound insights in times of ecological crisis and technological disruption. In this paper, Mathias Risse reflects on Wub-e-ke-niew's views, radical messages, and blistering assessment of centuries of cultural devastation with ongoing effects on contemporary society.
Indigenous Sovereignty and Human Rights in the United States, feat. Angela Riley
In this episode of Justice Matters, co-host Mathias Risse talks with Angela Riley, Chief Justice of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation and Professor of Law and American Indian Studies at UCLA, about indigenous sovereignty and human rights in the United States. They discuss the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, what sovereignty means for tribes in the U.S. compared to indigenous communities globally, the tribal government’s relationship to U.S. federal and state governments, recent changes to the Citizen Potawatomi Nation’s constitution, the Potawatomi judiciary system, and Intellectual Property law in the U.S. and its relation to indigenous knowledge.
How To Save The Amazon: The Reasons Why a Living Forest is Worth More than a Cut-Down One
This paper by Carr Center Senior Fellow Luís Roberto Barroso, President of the Supreme Federal Court of Brazil, highlights the importance of the Amazon for the global ecosystem, the retreat and the advance of deforestation in the area located within Brazilian territory, as well as the rising trend of environmental crimes, with special attention afforded to illegal logging, land grabbing and unauthorized mining activities, including in Indigenous reserves.
Human Rights and Indigenous Rights in New Zealand, feat. Claire Charters
In this episode of Justice Matters, co-host Mathias Risse talks with Claire Charters, who was recently named in the role of Rongomau Taketake to lead work on the Te Kāhui Tika Tangata Human Rights Commission in Aotearoa/New Zealand. Together they discuss her new position on the Commission, the status of Māori representation in government, the right-wing pushback against indigenous rights, the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi and its implications for Māori sovereignty, and the importance of the 2007 UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
On the Role of Solar Geoengineering in Combatting Climate Change: Harvard University vs. Indigenous Voices
In 2021, the Saami Council asked Harvard to suspend research related to stratospheric aerosol injections, a form of geoengineering. Their intervention raises far-reaching questions regarding the appropriateness of geoengineering as a response to climate change, but also regarding the status of Indigenous voices in this debate. In this paper, Mathias Risse discusses the importance of engaging Indigenous voices as a way of addressing one type of moral corruption in climate change, namely that only voices from the present can engage on what to do about it.
Conflict, Militarization, and the Exploitation of Indigenous Land and Resources
The 2021 Indigenous Women Convening for Peace, Justice, and Reconciliation Conference brought together Indigenous scholars and female leaders from seven Indigenous socio-cultural zones around the world. Together, they shared stories of war and conflict in their territories and discussed collective ways of ideating Indigenous conflict resolution and peacemaking processes. This publication features the 10 speakers of the conference and their profound statements on the state of human rights and peacemaking in their respective Indigenous zones.