Professor Davis' publishes in the Australian International Law Journal

Abstract: In 2012, the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples ('UNDRIP') celebrates its fifth birthday. Since its adoption by the UN General Assembly in 2007, the UNDRIP has inspired expansive academic commentary. This literature has scrutinised every aspect of the UNDRIP, from questioning the strategy and motives of its Indigenous co-drafters, to its ostensible delimiting of Indigenous peoples' right to self-determination in international law, as well as the controversial unilateral expansion by the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues of its mandate to be the supervisory mechanism of state's implementation of the UNDRIP. In particular, there is acute interest in the UNDRIP's status in customary international law, no doubt generated by the over-eager scholars who claimed at the outset that some of the rights contained within the Declaration already form part of customary international law. The anxiety over whether aspects of the UNDRIP are binding or not binding is palpable, yet less attention is paid by the purveyors of this interpretation to the limitations of customary international law and the unrealistic expectations such speculation creates in Indigenous communities. Given the scrutiny it has attracted, this article traces some of the key themes emerging from the somewhat discursive multi-disciplinary commentary of the past five years, in order to reflect on the significance of the UNDRIP's fifth anniversary.