United Nations to probe ethnic cleansing in US

When Fidel Castro took the reins in Cuba he dissolved the previous constitution with all its treaties, wrote a new manual, and ruled by decree.

That's essentially what happened to tribes: treaties that served as constitutions for American indigenous were broken and are still being rewritten for political expediency. American Indians are subject to at least four overlapping jurisdictions making tribes the most regulated people in the US without representatives serving in Congress.

Lise Balk King is a Fellow at the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy, Harvard Kennedy School of Government. She was previously co-publisher and executive editor of The Native Voice newspaper.

She brought readers up to speed at Indian Country Today on the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) as it turns its focus to the American Genocide.

The most important human rights milestone in our collective history is arguably the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), which was taken up on the heels of the atrocities of World War II at the first session of the UN General Assembly in 1946. The United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, Prof. James Anaya, provides a simple formula: “Use the declaration for engagement with governments, with Congress, with the courts. Tribes need to use it with the outside world and within their communities…to build healthy relationships on all levels.” Now is the time to insist that the standards originally put forth by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights be carried out by the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Let’s aspire that results won’t be 60 years in the making.

It would seem that progressives are less inclined to support a constitutional convention if recent comments are any gauge.

Could a constitutional convention reconcile and correct crimes against tribes?