Human rights and self-determination are hot issues as nations debate the application of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples: Is the Declaration a revolutionary challenge to the colonial system that dominates Indigenous peoples? Or a modest proposal to accommodate Indigenous peoples within state structures?

A multitude of Indigenous voices assert that the UN Declaration guarantees Indigenous self-determination and the protection of international standards of human rights. They say the aim of the Declaration is to establish Indigenous nations on an equal footing with all other nations.

The U.S. Mission to the United Nations challenges this, asserting that the Declaration establishes a "different" standard of rights and does not put Indigenous peoples in the same class as nation-states. The goal of the Declaration, says the U.S., is to perfect the legal framework of subordination—"wardship," as it is called in federal Indian law—to incorporate Indigenous peoples into states.