Professor Kristen Carpenter and the U.N. Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (EMRIP) met with Michelle Bachelet, president of Chile, on December 7. The meeting was part of the Expert Mechanism’s multi-day visit to Santiago to conduct a study on “free, prior, and informed consent” among indigenous peoples, states, and industry as a safeguard for self-determination, land, culture, and other human rights.
Other attendees were EMRIP Chairman Albert Kwokwo Barume, Megan Davis, Edtami Mansayagan, Alexey Tsykarev, Laila Susanne Vars, Erika Magami Yamada, and the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights delegation composed of Antti Korkeakivi, Catherine Fox, Juan Fernando Núñez, and Ana Paula de Souza.
The Expert Mechanism is a seven-member subsidiary body of the U.N. Human Right Council, charged with advising states and indigenous peoples in achieving the aims of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of the Indigenous Peoples. Carpenter was appointed as the North American member of the Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in March 2017, joining human rights experts from Africa, Asia, the Arctic, Europe, the Pacific, and South America.
Pictured: Kristen Carpenter (front row, second from right) with members of the Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights delegation, and President Bachelet (front row, third from right).