Actual Exercise of the Right

RIGHTS AIPP AIPP Regional Capacity Building Program - Training Manual on the UNDRIP 64 tives of the autonomous district and regional councils and their authority to establish judicial and quasi-judicial bodies. The aforesaid councils may pass laws for the estab- lishment of village or town committees or councils, the appointment and succession of Chiefs or headmen, marriage and divorce, and social customs. Village councils or other courts so constituted by district or regional councils are empowered to try all suits and cases between indigenous people “scheduled tribes”, excluding grave criminal offenc- es that carry high prison sentences or death penalties, unless the governor of the state expressly authorizes the indigenous court or person concerned to try them. Regional and district councils hear appeals against the judgments and decisions of the village councils or other courts.

V. CHALLENGES

A. Needs, Capaciies, Strategies

Needs. Some needs are fairly common: like difficulties of accessing information on custom- ary law principles, absence of a data base, ab- sence of compendia on customary laws etc. Capacities. Capacity-raising of indigenous peoples’ organizations, leaders and activists is required in most situations. Training pro- grammes of PACOS, Hill Tracts NGO Forum lat- er, CIPD and KMKS may provide some ideas. Strategies. Strategies are required on how best to collect information e.g., to codify or not, on how to lobby civic action, litigation in court, human rights advocacy, etc..

B. Implementaion

Implementation or enjoyment or exercise of the customary law rights that are already recog- nized in state law will vary from country to country and people to people. Examples of best practice laws that have been mentioned are the Autonomous District Coun- cils in Northeast India; the Land Titling in Philippines under IPRA; and the Waitangi Tribunal in Aotoroa, New Zealand. In practice, however, there are severe implementation gaps in the said examples. There will most likely be similar implementation challenges in most other countries.

C. Monitoring

Mechanisms to monitor the situation of customary laws in most countries face difficulties. Absence of clear supervisory and oversight mechanisms create severe difficulties, even in cases of relatively strong customary personal law practice, such as Sabah in Malaysia, North- east India, and Chittagong Hill Tracts in Bangladesh. This final section should be a participa- tory process of envisioning and identifica- tion for the particular context of the par- ticipants, which will vary from country to country, and from place to place. Discuss with the participants the three main points as listed below: • Needs, capacities, strategies • Implementation • Monitoring Split up the participants into workshop groups, and have them do poster presen- tations afterwards, in plenary. Suggested Method Module-3 RIGHTS AIPP AIPP Regional Capacity Building Program - Training Manual on the UNDRIP 65 The links between customary law practice and supervision by human rights watchdog bod- ies and formal courts of law are often weak, misunderstood or tense. There is a general need to increase synergy between and among watchdog bodies and indigenous peoples’ institutions and share responsibilities. The UNDRIP makes it clear, especially in Article 34, that customary law must conform to international human rights standards. Module-3