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By Dev Kumar Sunuwar (Koĩts-Sunuwar, CS Staff)

On January 31, 2023, the United Nations Human Rights Council Working Group held the Universal Periodic Review of Japan's human rights record. The Universal Periodic Review is a process through which all UN member countries assess each other's human rights circumstances in light of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, human rights treaties, and other mechanisms and provide recommendations for areas that need to be improved.

By Dev Kumar Sunuwar
 

The first ever Ainu Indigenous food festival, Indigenous Terra Madre Asia and Pan Pacific, was held October 11-14, 2019, in Ainu Moshir, the land of the Ainu Peoples in Hokkaido, Japan. Hosted by the Ainu Women’s Association, Menoko Mosmos, in collaboration with Slow Food Nippon, Slow Food and the Indigenous Terra Madre Network, the event was held to commemorate World Food Day. The first Indigenous Terra Madre was held in Jokkmokk, Sweden, the land of the Sami Peoples in 2011, then was followed by an event in Shillong, India, in 2015.

Mr. President, Honourable Ministers, Executive Secretary of the Convention on Biological Diversity, Distinguished delegates, Indigenous brothers and sisters; Today I’m speaking on behalf of the International Indigenous Forum on Biodiversity (IIFB).

After two weeks of continuous work, long discussions and many negotiations we reach the end of COP10. The IIFB representatives, including Indigenous women, have actively engaged in all these discussions with our proposals and deliberations.

Negotiations on an international regime on Access and Benefit Sharing  for the use of genetic resources resulted in a new protocol at the tenth meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biodiversity (CBD) in Nagoya, Aichi, Japan, from 18 to 29 October 2010, where over 200 Indigenous representatives participated. The protocol was adopted in Japan on October 29th, and is now known as the Nagoya Protocol.  A protocol is a treaty developed within a treaty, in this case within the CBD.

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