Part I The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples: Background, content and implementation 3. SIGNIFICANCE OF COLLECTIVE RIGHTS Articles 1 and 2 of the Declaration state that indigenous peoples have the right to enjoy all human rights and freedoms from discrimination, as individuals and collectively. The Declaration gives prominence to collective rights to a degree unprecedented in international human rights law. Indigenous peoples often organize their societies as a group. The Expert Mechanism has explained the collective dimension to indigenous peoples’ way of life: Values of collective responsibility and respect for elders, ancestors, spirits and the community are often embodied in indigenous cultures, which can guide indigenous individuals’ behaviour in everyday life … Indigenous peoples have unique structures and institutions that have developed over time. These structures often have family as a primary unit, expanding to larger communal and social institutions, and are generally governed by indigenous law and sacred teachings.79 Given the collective character inherent in indigenous cultures, individual rights are not always adequate to give full expression to indigenous peoples’ rights. The rights contained in the Declaration seek to protect, in addition to individual rights, the collective rights of indigenous peoples because recognition of such rights is necessary to ensure the continuing existence, development and well-being of indigenous peoples as distinct peoples. Past experiences have shown that unless the collective rights of indigenous peoples are respected, there is a risk that such cultures may disappear through forced assimilation into the dominant society. A Squamish father and daughter. Bella Bella, Heiltsuk Nation, Canada. UN Photo/John Isaac. 79 A/HRC/EMRIP/2012/3, paras. 53-54. Chapter 2: The content of the Declaration: Equality and non-discrimination; cultural integrity; and collective rights | 15