Indigenous Peoples, local communities, and the future of Article 8(j)

The establishment of a permanent Subsidiary Body on Article 8(j) under the CBD marks an important development in the institutional participation of Indigenous Peoples and local communities. It also presents an opportunity to reflect on how Party leadership and constituency responsibility for representative selection can work together.

Decision 16/5 recognizes the Party-led character of the Subsidiary Body while emphasizing the full and effective participation of Indigenous Peoples and local communities. These are not necessarily competing principles. The important question is how institutional arrangements can respect both.

The Convention has a substantial history to draw upon. As early as Decision IV/9, Parties encouraged Indigenous and local communities to identify processes for selecting their participants in the former Working Group on Article 8(j). Over subsequent decades, constituency organizing, regional coordination, and representative practices developed through the International Indige-nous Forum on Biodiversity (IIFB) have become impor-tant features of participation.

This experience offers an important distinction: the responsibility for governing an intergovernmental body is not the same as the responsibility for identifying who legitimately represents a constituency.

Parties and the Bureau have established responsibilities for institutional governance, transparency, and accountability. Indigenous Peoples and local communities, in turn, have their own governance structures, representative institutions, and processes through which they identify those who speak on their behalf. Recognizing these respective responsibilities can strengthen rather than diminish institutional legitimacy.

How participation procedures are designed also matters. Requirements that appear administratively neutral may have different consequences across regions. 
In Southeast Asia, for example, national categories of recognition do not always correspond to international understandings of Indigenous Peoples. Procedures that rely heavily on official recognition or registration may inadvertently limit participation or displace established constituency processes.

This is why the distinction between constituency selection and formal institutional procedures deserves careful attention. The act of identifying a representative, the process through which that representative assumes an institutional role, and the accountability arrangements that follow need not rest with the same actors.

The permanent Subsidiary Body offers an opportunity to build on the Convention's accumulated experience rather than starting anew. Party leadership and constituency choice need not be mutually exclusive. Institutional arrangements that clarify their respective roles can support representative legitimacy, accountability, and full and effective participation.

For a fuller examination of these institutional questions, see: "Holding Difference: Indigenous Peoples, Local Communities, and the Future of Article 8(j)" by June Rubis, Lucy Mulenkei, Jennifer Tauli-Corpuz, Jannie Lasimbang, and Edmund Bon, 
published in the ICCA Consortium's On Governance series. https://doi.org/10.70841/JLE76A