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Mr. Rodolfo Stavenhagen, IMADR Director and former UN Special Rapporteur on the rights of indigenous people, issued a congratulatory statement on the official recognition of the Ainu as an indigenous people of Japan. Below is the full text of the statement.

Statement of Rodolfo Stavenhagen, former UN Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous People, on the official recognition of the Ainu as an indigenous people of Japan

December 30, 2008

In September 2007 the General Assembly of the United Nations solemnly proclaimed the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which had been in the making in the Human Rights Council for over twenty years. This is a great victory for all indigenous peoples worldwide, as well as an important step forward in the international protection of human rights. During the decades in which the draft declaration was being discussed, the representatives of many indigenous peoples around the world came to Geneva to present their viewpoints and to lobby the world’s diplomats for the recognition of their long neglected and frequently abused rights. Among these groups, there came occasionally also representatives of the Ainu people of Japan to inform the rest of the world about their situation and to state their case for the full recognition of their rights as an indigenous people. For a long time the Japanese government did not legally recognize the Ainu as an indigenous people although many people in Japan knew how the Ainu had been conquered and incorporated into the Japanese Empire in the nineteenth century.

Throughout their modern history, the Ainu of Hokkaido were dispossessed of their lands and resources by settlers from the south, and their language and customs were prohibited. Thus, much of their culture was destroyed. In recent decades, official institutions in Japan have made efforts to preserve and protect the remnants of Ainu culture and arts as part of the national culture of the country, but still their rights as a distinct people within the Japanese nation were not officially recognized. During the years that I held the mandate of United Nations Special Rapporteur on the rights and fundamental freedoms of indigenous people, I had the opportunity, through the kind offices of IMADR and the Ainu Association of Hokkaido, of visiting Ainu communities in Hokkaido in 2002 where I was informed about their situation, their needs and their aspirations. I came away convinced that the rights of the Ainu as an indigenous people of Japan should be protected by law, and I reported on this in my annual report to the UN Commission for Human Rights.

Now, with the adoption of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, the situation has begun to change. I am happy to note that in June 2008 the Diet passed a resolution recognizing the Ainu as an indigenous people of Japan, and the government declared its intention to abide by the resolution. Although this should have happened long ago, it is never too late to redress historical injustices. For the Ainu people the Diet’s decision is a belated recognition of their collective rights as a distinct people who were discriminated against in historical times. The resolution of the Diet and the response of the government will open new spaces for the full participation of the Ainu people in the multicultural society that is Japan at the beginning of the twenty-first century. My heartiest congratulations to the Ainu people and to all the people of Japan.