Canada, Australia, and Mexico, address Indigenous issues before the United Nations Human Rights Council

https://www.ohchr.org/en/news/2023/03/human-rights-council-hears-16-dignitaries-it-continues-its-high-level-segment

Why Australia will not recognize Indigenous customary Law

From The Conversation

While the Australian Law Reform Commissions’s 1986 report on the use of customary law for Aboriginal people was a great initiative, it was, in hindsight, a notion well before its time. Although 30 years have elapsed since the report was published, its recommendations have, by and large, been ignored.

Few in Australia understand the context and true meaning of customary law. Denials of its validity are often based on ignorance or on specific examples devoid of context; the severity of “spearing” for example, as being contrary to human rights norms.

This is akin to rejecting the common law based solely on, say, the use of lethal injections to execute prisoners in the United States.

Continued here

Australian Indigenous art to return to Australia

From the BBC:

Historic Indigenous objects return to Australia
A collection of rare objects, including a shield thought to have been picked up by Captain Cook in 1770, are set to return to Australia for the first time.

The exhibition is part of a new deal signed between the National Museum of Australia and the British Museum.

A similar exhibit will be done at the British Museum.

Aboriginal bones are being returned to Australia. Where and when will they be reburied?

From The Guardian,
Paul Daley
The Guardian, Friday 13 June 2014:

The bone collectors: a brutal chapter in Australia's past
The remains of hundreds of Aboriginal people, dug up from sacred ground and once displayed in museums all over the world, are now stored in a Canberra warehouse. When will they be given a national resting place?

According to national museum records, in recent decades Indigenous remains have been repatriated to the museum from cultural institutions, including museums, educational facilities, medical schools and private collections in Britain, the United States, Sweden and Austria. Other remains from collections in Berlin, at Washington's Smithsonian Museum, Oxford University and London's Natural History Museum have been repatriated directly to Australian Indigenous communities. The federal government, through the Ministry for the Arts, supports the national museum's Indigenous repatriation programme. Other Australian state and territory institutions also hold significant collections of Indigenous remains and sacred artefacts. All have programmes to return them to country. The government estimates that the remains of as many as 900 Indigenous Australians are still held in institutions in the UK, Germany, France, the US and elsewhere.

Continued here: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jun/14/aboriginal-bones-being-returned-australia/

Full article here: http://meanjin.com.au/articles/post/restless-indigenous-remains/

Australia to sign UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples

Australia to Become Signatory to the United Nations Declaration on Rights of Indigenous Peoples
Posted: Friday, 13 March 2009, 9:56 (EST)

According to 2009 Australian of the Year, Professor Mick Dodson, the Rudd Government would reverse the position of the previous Howard administration to sign the United Nations Declaration on Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

After the Formal Apology to the Stolen Generations, the Federal Government has committed to establish and implement policies to reduce the gap between non-indigenous Australians and indigenous Australians.

Continued here:http://au.christiantoday.com/article/australia-to-become-signatory-to-the-united-nations-declaration-on-rights-of-indigenous-peoples/5711.htm

Apology to Australia's Indigenous Peoples

On 13 Feb 2008, Hon. Kevin Rudd, M.P., the Prime Minister of Australia, presented an Apology to Australia's Indigenous Peoples in Parliament. The Leader of the Opposition also spoke on the same matter. See http://www.aph.gov.au/hansard/ See, also, this collection of quotes on the issue: http://viv.id.au/blog/?p=1446