Chapter X.31: Indigenous rights to water

Indigenous rights to water follow diverse trajectories across the globe. In Asia and Africa, even the concept of indigeneity is questioned, and peoples with ancient histories connected to a place are defined by ethnicity as opposed to sovereign or place-based rights. In the parts of the globe colonized by Europeans, the definition of these rights has been in a continual state of transition as social norms evolve and indigenous capacity to assert rights grow. At the forefront in this process of evolving recognition of rights is the right of indigenous peoples as sovereign to control, allocate, develop, restore, renew, and protect their own water resource. This aspirational goal is reflected in the effort to create a common global understanding of the rights of indigenous peoples through declaration and definition of the right of self-determination articulated in the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.