Donia Human Rights Center Panel Discussion | International Indigenous Language Rights

Moderator: Matthew Fletcher, Harry Burns Hutchins Collegiate Professor of Law, Michigan Law School

This event is free and open to the public, but registration is required if you intend to participate virtually. Once you’ve registered, the joining information will be sent to your email.

Register at: https://myumi.ch/x7681

The United Nations declared 2022-2032 as the International Decade of Indigenous Languages. This panel of Indigenous language rights scholars and activists will discuss the rights to “use, revitalize, and transmit their languages,” rights articulated and protected by the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

Diego A. Tituaña, a Kichwa Otavalo from Ecuador, is a diplomat of the Ecuadorian Foreign Service. He has multilateral experience in human rights, disarmament, and migration issues. Diego is currently serving as Deputy Chief of Mission at the Ecuador Embassy in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. From 2020 to 2022, in his capacity as head of the Technical Office of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the province of Imbabura, he oversaw human mobility and foreign policy issues in the northern border area. In 2014, Diego became the first indigenous career diplomat that was appointed at the Permanent Mission to the United Nations. From 2014 to 2019, he was the facilitator of the United Nations Resolution on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Under his leadership, the United Nations started two important actions for the indigenous peoples: the process of enhancing their participation at the United Nations and the Proclamation of 2019 as the International Year of Indigenous Languages. Diego is a 2019 Yale Maurice R. Greenberg World Fellow and 2021 Draper Hills Summer Fellow from Stanford University. He holds a master’s degree in International Relations and Diplomacy from Instituto de Altos Estudios Nacionales, and a BA in International Relations from Universidad San Francisco de Quito, Ecuador. In addition, he is a PHD candidate in Advanced Studies in Human Rights at the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid.

Kristen Carpenter is Council Tree Professor of Law and Director of the American Indian Law Program at the University of Colorado Law School. Professor Carpenter served as chair and member of the United Nations Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (EMRIP) from 2017-2021. While serving at the United Nations, Professor Carpenter worked on human rights issues regarding Indigenous Peoples throughout the world. With colleagues at the Native American Rights Fund, Carpenter is now co-lead on The Implementation Project an effort to advance the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in the United States. She also serves as a Justice of the Shawnee Tribe Supreme Court.

Aleksei Tsykarev serves as chair of the Center for Support of Indigenous Peoples and Civic Diplomacy «Young Karelia», an NGO recognized with special consultative status by the United Nations Economic and Social Council. A lifetime activist for the rights of indigenous peoples in Russia, Tsykarev previously led the International Youth Association of Finno-Ugric Peoples, and has served as an independent expert in several United Nations capacities. Tsykarev is a former Member and Chairperson-Rapporteur of the United Nations Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, a subsidiary body of the UN Human Rights Council. He also served on the International Steering Committee for the UN’s 2019 International Year of Indigenous Languages, led by UNESCO. Tsykarev holds a Master of Linguistics from Petrozavodsk State University, in Russia, and his academic publications focus on indigenous peoples’ rights, particularly in the areas of language and culture. In Spring 2019, he was a Visiting Scholar at the University of Colorado in the United States. Most recently, Tsykarev was appointed by the United Nations Economic and Social Council to serve as Member of the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues for a three-year term starting on 1 January, 2020. Tsykarev advises global institutions, including the World Bank, as well as think tanks and scientific organizations, regarding indigenous peoples’ rights. He has been active in a range of indigenous organizations, and has participated in regional and international forums, including the World Conference on Indigenous Issues, World Conference on Youth, the World Congress of Finno-Ugric Peoples, and the Global Indigenous Youth Caucus. Tsykarev has coordinated a number of international projects in the sphere of human rights, culture, and civic diplomacy, and serves on advisory councils to government ministries and offices. Tsykarev lectures on indigenous peoples and human rights at universities around the world, as well as in various bodies of the United Nations.

Matthew L.M. Fletcher is the Harry Burns Hutchins Collegiate Professor of Law at the University of Michigan Law School. He teaches and writes in the areas of Federal Indian Law, American Indian Tribal Law, Anishinaabe legal and political philosophy, constitutional law, federal courts, and legal ethics. He sits as the Chief Justice of the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians, the Pokagon Band of Potawatomi Indians, and the Poarch Band of Creek Indians. He also sits as an appellate judge for several other tribal nations. He is a member of the Grand Traverse Band. Professor Fletcher graduated from the University of Michigan Law School in 1997 and the University of Michigan in 1994. He is married to Wenona Singel, a member of the Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians, and they have two sons, Owen and Emmett.