Wednesday, February 20, 2019
Holistic Human Rights
In Re-enchanting the World: Indigenous Peoples’ Rights as Essential Parts of a Holistic Human Rights Regime, Siegfried Wiessner–chair of the International Law Association Committee on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples–says, “The mission of the law should be to answer responsibly to the totality of human aspirations in the crucible between individual self-realization and the need for belonging to groups, entities larger than self.” As he argues, law ought to “promote a public order of human dignity.”
As Wiessner observes, the aspiration to live in communion with others in accordance with one’s traditions and culture have to be recognized by the state in order for Indigenous communities to live safely in such communion. The loss of these key spiritual elements of these inherited orders in favor of unrestrained and unguided materialism and individualism, he notes, means that Indigenous peoples are in particular need of protection due to the fact that
survival of their languages, rituals, and cultural identities is often in mortal peril.
