According to RAIPON (Russian Association of Indigenous Peoples of the North, Siberia and Far East) , the representative of the Russian Federation stated that it is not an accidental occurrence that the Russian legislation provides special status of small-numbered indigenous peoples, and that the protection of the rights and interests of indigenous peoples are considered a priority by the Government of the Russian Federation.

-          Russian legislation, in the fields of rights of indigenous peoples, continues to improve, according to the representative, including under the influence of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and the Second Decade of the World’s Indigenous Peoples.

Further, he also stated that large parts of the Un Declaration on the rights of Indigenous Peoples were reflected in the legislation of the Russian Federation.

The United Nations’ Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (EMRIP) is composed of five experts, and the Expert Mechanism will provide thematic expertise on the rights of indigenous peoples to the Human Rights Council, the main human rights body of the United Nations.

Indigenous peoples’ rights in Russian legislation are mainly made visible in the federal law On Guarantees of the Rights of Numerically Small Indigenous Peoples of the Russian Federation (N 82-FZ adopted on April 30, 1999). In addition, the federal laws On the General Principles of Organizing Communities of Numerically Small Indigenous Peoples of the North (N 104-FZ adopted on July 20, 2000) and On Territories of Traditional Nature Use of Numerically Small Indigenous Peoples of the North, Siberia and Far East of the Russian Federation (N 49-FZ adopted on May 7, 2001). However, the implementation of these federal laws suffer from constant amendments.

Read more about implementation of rights of indigenous peoples in Russia, especially in encounters with extractive industry, in Barents Review 2010, Talking Barents.