The geniuses at the United Nations have come up with the brilliant notion that the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People requires the return of Mount Rushmore to the Native Americans.
The Associated Press reports that a UN “fact finder surveying the lives of Native Americans and Alaska Natives said Friday he’ll recommend in an upcoming report that some of the tribes’ lands be restored, including the Black Hills of South Dakota . . . The Black Hills, home to Mount Rushmore, are public land but are considered sacred by the Sioux tribes. The Sioux have refused to accept money awarded in a 1980 US Supreme Court decision and have sought return of the land. The Black Hills and other lands were set aside for the Sioux in an 1868 treaty. But Congress passed a law in 1877 taking the land.”
While not many Americans would defend US Indian policy in the 19th century as either enlightened or fair, the United Nations isn’t the organization from which this country will seek advice about what to do next.
So what gives it a mandate to recommend that America return Mount Rushmore to the Sioux? A 2010 decision by President Obama, who reversed longstanding US policy and endorsed the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People.
Now that the US government has endorsed the declaration, bureaucrats claiming to uphold its principles can and will issue statements and recommendations as they see fit. These declarations, like most of what the UN does, have no legal standing or force. The US Congress would have to authorize any reopening of Indian claims.
The decision to endorse the declaration looks like one of those classically empty goodwill gestures that liberal internationalists always hope will show “leadership” and gain us “prestige.” Often, these gestures accomplish nothing and are soon forgotten; every now and then, however, they create minor but annoying trouble.
This decision looks like one of the latter kind. Obama’s decision will embarrass America over time as various claimants look for ways to use the UN system to give publicity to their claims. The US isn’t going to follow UN recommendations on dealing with Indian claims, but Obama’s empowerment of the commission puts us into the awkward position of repudiating the conclusions of a body the current administration enthusiastically backed. As often as the bureaucrats on the commission wish, they can embarrass the United States by calling on its government to do things that it won’t and can’t do.
In announcing the policy shift in 2010, Obama declared, “What matters far more than words, what matters far more than any resolution or declaration, are actions to match those words.” How ironic that those were among the emptiest words this president has ever uttered.
If anything, putting the United Nations behind these land claims makes it harder for Congress to take the action the Sioux would like. US diplomacy in this case has hurt the United States without helping the Sioux: It’s a classic lose-lose situation, what diplomacy looks like when it has become untethered from the real world.
From Walter Russell Mead’s American Interest blog, Via Meadia.