Nearly 100 Indigenous leaders from the seven socio-cultural regions of the world have reached unanimous agreement on defining a Just Transition with respect to impacted or potentially impacted Indigenous Peoples.

Indigenous Peoples Principles and Protocols for Just Transition, the culminating document from the JUST TRANSITION: Indigenous Peoples’ Perspectives, Knowledge, and Lived Experiences Summit, which took place in Geneva, Switzerland, October 8-10, defines what the transition to “clean” or “green” energy and development must do to respect the rights and protect the wellbeing of Indigenous Peoples. The document provides 11 principles that corporate and state actors must adhere to when designing and implementing projects in the name of just, sustainable, or “green” initiatives.

“Activities that are being proposed or carried out on our lands, ice, waters and territories in the name of just transition, green economy, green/clean energy, or emissions reduction, without the obtainment of our free, prior and informed consent or which threaten our sacred places, cultural practices, Indigenous Peoples’ food sources, and ecosystems, or otherwise violate our inherent rights, are not a just transition,” states the document.

“Two years ago, we began convening Indigenous leaders from around the world to address the increasing violence, harm, and negative impacts that the so-called ‘green’ or ‘clean’ energy transition is perpetuating on our lands and to our communities – the same impacts Indigenous Peoples experience from fossil fuel extractive practices,” said Rodion Sulyandziga, who chaired the Summit coordinating committee. “The culmination was our Indigenous Just Transition Summit and this outcomes document which provides unanimous agreement about the definitions, principles, and protocols that must be foundational for Just Transition. These are the first steps for anyone – be it corporate, State, or Indigenous-led enterprise – to build a truly just, sustainable, and inclusive economy for all people of the world.”

The 11 principles for a Just Transition established during the Summit are:

1. Right to Life - Encompassing Indigenous Peoples’ physical and spiritual integrity and “guaranteeing their present and future existence.”

2. Right to Self-determination and Sovereignty of Indigenous Peoples - The “recognition, respect, and full implementation of the inherent rights of Indigenous Peoples” as affirmed by minimum standards of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) and other international instruments. This includes Indigenous Peoples’ right to freely determine their own political, social, economic development and future, and rights to equitable benefit-sharing.

3. Decolonization - Rejection of the Doctrine of Discovery and continuing impacts from “colonial and extractive resource exploitation, false solutions, military occupation, and activities that threaten our mental, spiritual, reproductive, intergenerational, and physical health, biodiversity, natural ecosystems, cultures, values, and plant and animal relatives.”

4. Reparations, Land Back, and Full Restoration of Lands - Ensuring “the return, recognition, and respect of Indigenous lands, territories, and waters, as well as the protection of all Indigenous natural resources, ecosystems, and other means of livelihood,” which “must begin with the unrestricted access, restoration, recognition, and respect of our rights to our ancestral lands, territories, and waters, and other resources that were taken without our consent…”

5. Respect for Indigenous Peoples' Ways of Life - Guaranteeing food sovereignty, Indigenous economies, Indigenous science, technologies, and innovations, lived experiences, jurisdiction, languages, cultures, spirituality, responsibilities to the natural world, biodiversity, knowledge systems,” as well as respect for Indigenous Peoples’ knowledge, beliefs, and ancestral practices to protect our ecosystems and food systems, and uphold our sacred responsibilities to our Peoples, families and future generations.”

6. Transparency and Accountability - “Include and reflect the input and effective participation of Indigenous Peoples… [with] opportunity for active and effective negotiations, based on free, prior and informed consent regarding all projects, from the design to implementation, monitoring, and evaluation, on and affecting Indigenous Peoples’ lands, territories, resources, and waters.

7. Historical Reparations - Guarantee economic and non-economic reparations for the historical and continuing damages through “standards established by human rights courts and bodies, and as determined by the pre-existing Indigenous nations and peoples when demanding such reparations.”

8. Full Protection of Indigenous Peoples - Accounting for and eliminating “the criminalization of Indigenous Peoples’ human rights and environmental defenders, and cultural practitioners, including but not limited to extrajudicial killings, torture, imprisonments, surveillance, and other threats of harassment, intimidation, and reprisals with impunity, including the policing and militarization of Indigenous Peoples’ territories.

9. Recognition of Indigenous Peoples' Roles and Responsibilities - Recognizing Indigenous Peoples’ roles “as caretakers, stewards, and guardians of our traditional lands, rangelands, forests, deserts, savannas, waters, air, ice, territories, and resources, our Indigenous laws and protocols, and the spiritual, cultural, historic and ongoing relationships we have with the plants, animals, elements, lands, ice, and waters which give us life and identity.”

10. Maintaining 1.5 Degrees - Providing “direct access to financing for Indigenous Peoples’ own projects for climate change aversion and mitigation, adaptation, resilience, and direct access payments for loss and damage” within the global mandate to limit rising temperatures to 1.5 degrees celsius in order to reduce and prevent climate change.

11. A Rights-based Approach to Supply Chains - Ensuring supply chains for just transition projects do “not cause harm to Indigenous Peoples, other peoples, ecosystems, or sacred sites” by “assessing the impacts of the totality of supply chains (from raw materials to end-use projects to waste).” Supply chains must avoid a “trade off benefits to one peoples to the detriment of another peoples’ lands, territories, and resources,” and “State and private actors must also ensure full transparency” regarding funding and investment sources.”

To implement these principles, Indigenous leaders at the Summit have committed to initiating processes for their Peoples to safeguard what they “determine to be critical for their survival and well-being that is rooted in their worldviews and values,” and “disseminate, promote, and defend these principles and protocols”, as well as “use them in their education, trainings, and advocacy efforts.” They will also continue to “engage and challenge regulations, standards, laws, policies, and actions that ignore their Free, Prior, and Informed Consent”, stand in solidarity with one another to oppose the imposition of “green energy” projects impacting their lands, call for “implementation of an ecosystem approach,” and “demand that Indigenous, human, environmental, and lands rights defenders be protected.”

Additionally, they have committed to considering “utilizing international human rights bodies and national, international and regional mechanisms to submit urgent complaints to stop states' actions and rights’ violations” and refusing to tolerate any forced evictions, displacements, relocations, dispossession, and expulsion, in the name of "green transition" projects.

Towards implementation, they call for “comprehensive mapping and due diligence procedures for transition minerals development and for social, environmental, and human rights impacts,” as well as the demand for “companies, governments, financial mechanisms, private sector, all responsible parties, to take full responsibility and action for damage, loss of cultural heritage, and other adverse impacts of mining activities to human, biodiversity, ancestral lands, cultural, and spiritual practices, territories and waters.”

Sulyandziga further discussed the role of Indigenous Peoples in the Just Transition: “For too long, Indigenous voices have been marginalized. From the Amazon to the Arctic, the protection of our environment has always been intertwined with the protection of our people. We are the stewards of the world’s most vital ecosystems, from rainforests to grasslands, and we are the first to suffer when these ecosystems are threatened. The world must understand that there can be no climate justice without Indigenous justice. There can be no green transition without the full participation of Indigenous peoples. Protecting the Earth means protecting the people who have always protected it. This is our responsibility, and it is also our right. Without Indigenous knowledge, the quest for a green future is a journey without a map. And without Indigenous voices, even the greenest economy will run dry."

Read Indigenous Peoples Principles and Protocols for Just Transition in English, En español, En français, Em português, На русском языке.

April 22, International Mother Earth Day