Standing Rock Sioux Chairman addressed the United Nations Human Rights Council, Geneva

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7. NBC News Excerpts:

Dave Archambault II, chairman of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe, waits to give his speech against the Energy Transfer Partners' Dakota Access oil pipeline during the Human Rights Council at the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland on Sept. 20, 2016. DENIS BALIBOUSE / Reuters


The chairman spoke as part of a United Nations Human Rights Council hearing on indigenous rights that featured more than three dozen tribes from around the world concerned with infringement on their lands by corporations and governments.

In Geneva, Archambault and other tribe representatives met with two UN ambassadors — including Keith Harper, the U.S. representative to the U.N. Human Rights Council — and experts on indigenous rights.

Archambault also formally invited Victoria Tauli-Corpuz, the U.N,'s Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, to visit Standing Rock — a visit that would require approval from the Obama administration.

Archambault told NBC News that the trip to Geneva was facilitated by the Indian Law Resource Center, a U.S.-based non-governmental organization that has consultative status at the Council. He said the opportunity to address the world's leading human rights body was "a historic moment" for the tribe.

"There was solidarity," Archambault told NBC News. "To see tribes here from all over the world who are having the same experiences where large corporations are infringing on their land, on their rights — it was powerful to see that we aren't alone in our struggle."

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/standing-rock-sioux-takes-pipeline-fight-un-human-rights-council-n651381