Social, Humanitarian and Cultural Committee (SOCHUM)

on the Rights of indigenous Peoples, in order to
ensure that certain populations are not excluded. in its
landmark convention on the topic, the International
Labour Organization defines “indigenous peoples”
as those that are descended from a population that
inhabited a given region at the time of conquest or
colonization. 114 Others define the term more broadly
to include any marginalized population that has strong
ties to native lands, practices subsistence agriculture,
and/or possesses a unique culture, language, or social
and political structure. Not all minority populations
are indigenous, but most indigenous peoples are a
minority in their respective states.
Causes of Minority Poverty
In their book on minority development in China,
Bhalla and Qiu provide a relatively uncontroversial
definition of poverty: “a social phenomenon
under which the standard of living of individuals
and households in a community or a country is
persistently below a certain level required physically
for sustaining human life according to some accepted
norms.” 115 More important than a compact definition
are the indicators of poverty, which include low
income and consumption levels; the inability to
receive adequate shelter, education, and heath care;
and lack of access to employment opportunities. 116
A distinction must be made, however, between
absolute and relative poverty. Absolute poverty is a
circumstance in which an individual does not have
access to a basic level of resources necessary to live.
Indicators of absolute poverty include starvation
and malnutrition; poor health due to diet and lack
of hygiene; and no attainment of any education. 117
Relative poverty is a situation in which an individual
has the resources to survive but not in a way that
matches the standards of society in terms of diet,
education, and employment. It is vital to utilize these
different definitions of poverty when discussing and
attempting to solve indigenous impoverishment in
various regions. In much of the developed world for
example, essentially none of the population lives in
absolute poverty; these countries must make efforts
to bring its citizens out of relative poverty. In the
developing world, a significant percentage of the
population lives in absolute poverty, so the primary
focus there should be to increase access to basic
nutrition, employment, and shelter. 118
Liberalization of Trade
One of the most notable causes of the
impoverishment of indigenous peoples over the past
decades has been the push toward the liberalization
of international trade. This problem encompasses two
trends that are intrinsically intertwined: the expansion
of transnational corporations into indigenous lands
and the declining viability of local indigenous means
of subsistence. For centuries, indigenous populations
have utilized this land for their own (primarily
agricultural) practices with little-to-no interference
from outside entities. Recently, however, laws have
permitted transitional corporations, often with the
blessing of national governments, to enter indigenous
lands with the purpose of extracting natural resources
like oil, gas, and minerals. With the development
of large-scale resource extraction equipment, local
agricultural techniques are no longer viable, leaving
these indigenous communities with little food and no
chance for employment.
The liberalization of international trade has
negatively impacted the prosperity of indigenous
populations through the direct competition of largescale
agricultural production. The primary driver of
this change was the 1995 World Trade Organization
Agreement on Agriculture (WtO Agreement on
Agriculture). While the details are not particularly
relevant to this discussion, one of the goals of the
WtO Agreement on Agriculture was to encourage
export competition and import liberalization through
reductions of import and export tariffs. 119 the World
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