On October 27, the United Nation’s Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, Victoria Tauli-Corpuz, will give a free talk at Lakehead University called Free, Prior and Informed Consent: A Local and Global Issue.

The talk will be held at 7:30 pm in ATAC 2001. The Special Rapporteur’s visit is an opportunity for local businesses and the public to learn more about The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

The Special Rapporteur’s talk is part of a larger Pan-American research project: resource governance and Indigenous rights —understanding intercultural frameworks for negotiating free prior and informed consent. The project is funded by a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council grant held by Wilfred Laurier University professor, Dr. Terry Mitchell and will bring together over 30 Indigenous leaders and researchers from Peru, Chile, the Northwest Territories, Nunavut, and Ontario to discuss Indigenous experiences of, and perspectives on, free prior and informed consent in the Ring of Fire and across the Americas.

The talk is being organized by Lakehead University’s Centre of Excellence for Sustainable Mining and Exploration, Lakehead’s Office of Aboriginal Initiatives, and Wilfred Laurier University’s Indigenous Rights and Resource Governance Research Program.