UP IHR highlights IP struggles in observance of 2020 National IP Month

In observance of the National Indigenous Peoples’ Month, which is commemorated every October as declared by Presidential Proclamation No. 1906, the UP Institute of Human Rights (UP IHR) published an album entitled “Indigenous Peoples, Human Rights, and Businesses” to discuss the intersections of Indigenous Peoples (IP) rights and business and human rights (BHR) issues.

In the album, UP IHR highlights the struggles of various IP groups across the Philippines against invasive corporate activities and public-private partnership projects which threaten a wide range of their individual and collective rights. These activities, which include damming, mining, oil drilling, to name a few, are carried out on or near IPs’ lands often without the Free, Prior and Informed Consent of the indigenous cultural community, further threatening rights and exacerbating IP vulnerabilities. UP IHR also analyzes the acts of these businesses and how they conform with or contravene the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGP-BHR), which is the global framework used for addressing adverse impacts on human rights linked to corporate activities.