A/HRC/21/24 I. Introduction 1. The present report is submitted to the Human Rights Council pursuant to its resolution 18/8, in which the Council requested the Secretary-General, in cooperation with the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), the Office of Legal Affairs and other relevant parts of the Secretariat, to prepare a detailed document on the ways and means of promoting participation at the United Nations of recognized indigenous peoples’ representatives on issues affecting them, given that they are not always organized as non-governmental organizations, and on how such participation might be structured, drawing from, among other things, the rules governing the participation in various United Nations bodies by non-governmental organizations (including Economic and Social Council resolution 1996/31) and by national human rights institutions (including Human Rights Council resolution 5/1 and Commission on Human Rights resolution 2005/74), and to present the document at its twenty-first session. 2. The Council’s request is consistent with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which, in article 41, states that the organs and specialized agencies of the United Nations system and other intergovernmental organizations are to contribute to the full realization of the provisions of the Declaration through the mobilization, inter alia, of financial cooperation and technical assistance. It also states that ways and means of ensuring participation of indigenous peoples on issues affecting them are to be established. 3. The Council’s request follows a proposal to the Council from the Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (A/HRC/18/43). In that proposal, the Expert Mechanism: (a) Referred to article 18 of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which affirms that indigenous peoples have the right to participate in decision-making in matters which would affect their rights, through representatives chosen by them in accordance with their own procedures, as well as to maintain and develop their own indigenous decision-making institutions; (b) Also referred to article 41 of the Declaration, which establishes a duty for the United Nations to contribute to the full realization of the provisions of the Declaration, including through ways and means of ensuring participation of indigenous peoples on issues affecting them; (c) Recognized that the United Nations consultative arrangements for non-State entities could prevent indigenous peoples’ governance bodies and institutions, including traditional indigenous Governments, indigenous parliaments, assemblies and councils, from participating in decision-making processes at the United Nations, as they were not always organized as non-governmental organizations; (d) Proposed that the Council should encourage the General Assembly to adopt, as a matter of urgency, appropriate permanent measures to ensure that indigenous peoples’ governance bodies and institutions, including traditional indigenous Governments, indigenous parliaments, assemblies and councils, were able to participate at the United Nations as observers with, at a minimum, the same participatory rights as nongovernmental organizations in consultative status with the Economic and Social Council. 4. The Expert Mechanism’s proposal to the Council reflects its 2009-2011 study on indigenous peoples and the right to participate in decision-making (A/HRC/18/42), in which it stated that the United Nations should, in accordance with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, establish a permanent mechanism or system for consultations with indigenous peoples’ governance bodies, including indigenous 3