A Focus on Indigenous Peoples, Traditional Cultural Expressions, and Fashion
(Geneva, Switzerland) Executive Director Pamela Coke-Hamilton delivered the opening remarks at the 'Towards Ethical and Inclusive Trade' panel during the 2024 WTO Public Forum.
Excellencies, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen,
We’re here today for a conversation whose importance cannot be overstated—and which seeks to lay the groundwork for a new vision of ethical, inclusive trade.
There are 476 million Indigenous Peoples spread out across the globe, from New Zealand to Alaska, from Brazil to Canada.
They are weavers and artisans, musicians and wood carvers, kava farmers and tourism experts.
They are the holders of knowledge, cultural expressions, and stories that have been handed down over centuries, even millennia.
They are the ones who are often teaching us the best ways to care for our environment—which are urgent lessons in our current ecological crisis.
And today, many of them live in extreme poverty.
Many are seeing the natural environments that they have spent generations protecting being destroyed or damaged beyond repair.
Many are seeing their traditional knowledge and cultural expressions being exploited by others for profit.
And, more often than not, their voices aren’t included in decision-making processes, both nationally and internationally.
We must do better. That starts right now.
At ITC, we’ve worked with Indigenous Peoples and traditional communities in Peru, Myanmar, Guyana, and Suriname for years, often within broader projects in a country or region.
And we soon realized that if we really wanted to do right by these communities, we needed a dedicated Indigenous Peoples strategy.
One shaped by Indigenous Peoples themselves.
So we teamed up with Columbia University and met with Indigenous Peoples representatives and groups from Brazil to Ecuador to Panama to put this strategy together.
And based on this strategy, we have a pilot project underway in Ecuador, where we’ll be supporting the women from the Association of Waorani Women of the Ecuadorian Amazon so they can meet the quality requirements of a buyer who has committed to buying their cocoa.
A collaboration that emerged after we met with this association at last year’s Public Forum.
Our strategy captures several lessons that will guide our work going forward. Critically, it recognizes that one of the most important assets Indigenous Peoples have at their disposal—their traditional knowledge and cultural expressions—is in urgent need of protection.
It’s why we’re working closely with our friends at WIPO, and why I’m delighted to be sharing the stage today with Assistant Director-General Edward Kwakwa.
WIPO has been a trailblazer in this area. Earlier this year, they achieved a historic agreement to protect genetic resources and associated traditional knowledge—and are continuing their work to craft international legal protections for traditional cultural expressions.
What makes that treaty so remarkable isn’t just what it commits governments to do—critical as that is—but that Indigenous Peoples were in the room throughout the process, driving and shaping that conversation.
That’s an example we can and must learn from—including at this year’s WTO Public Forum.
This week, many of you will have busy schedules, shuttling between panel discussions and plenary sessions and workshops.
These are important conversations, and on a theme that reflects both the challenges of our time and the future we want as a society.
But it’s not enough to just talk about how we’ll make re-globalization happen and achieve better trade for a better world. We also need to do something about it, and that begins with meeting the people we serve.
For 15 years, our Ethical Fashion Initiative has been connecting marginalized artisan communities, often living far from even local markets, to world-famous fashion brands like Ferragamo or Vivienne Westwood.
These connections are made possible thanks to a growing network of social enterprises and fashion hubs, including CABES, a social enterprise headquartered in Ouagadougou that runs production centres throughout Burkina Faso and serves as the umbrella for over 80 women-led cooperatives of weavers.
Today on this panel, you’ll be hearing from our longtime friend, Fatouma Sawadogo Maiga, representing CABES today.
You’ll hear from Linda Munn from Aotearoa New Zealand about how her art reflects tino rangatiratanga principles and spirituality in Māori life.
You’ll hear from James Johnson, famed Tlingit artist and carver from Alaska, about how his work honours ancestral tradition.
You’ll hear from my own ITC colleague Chloé Mukai about her work with the Ethical Fashion Initiative and from WIPO’s Daphne Zografos Johnsson on the legal landscape for traditional cultural expressions.
Some of the CABES textiles are on display this week at the Public Forum, and you can see the renowned Faso Dan Fani fabric at our “Experience Space” in the WTO delegates lounge.
At the Experience Space, you’ll meet wood carvers from Alaska, cotton spinners from Benin, weavers from Burkina Faso, and so many more.
Listen to their stories.
See what they make and why they make it.
Ask them why trade matters to them.
And take what you learn into the next sessions you attend at this Public Forum, and wherever you go next.
It’s fitting that we’re having this conversation in one of the world’s most important decision-making centres—and in a country where we’ve witnessed some major milestones in Indigenous Peoples’ representation on the international stage.
It was just over fifty years ago that Incomindios—the International Committee for the Indigenous Peoples of the Americas—was founded in Switzerland.
It was 47 years ago that a group from the International Indigenous Treaty Council came here to attend the International NGO Conference on Discrimination against Indigenous Peoples in the Americas—a pivotal moment ahead of the development of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
And it was just 25 years ago that Colombia submitted the proposal which led to the negotiations for what is now WIPO’s Treaty on Intellectual Property, Genetic Resources, and Associated Traditional Knowledge.
This is a legacy that we must uphold and build on. That’s what we’re working to do here today, and in the months and years to come.
And as we stand up for the rights and self-determination of Indigenous populations, let’s also make sure we listen and learn. And let’s make sure their approach to community and environment becomes part of ours too.
Thank you all.