March 5, 2026 — During the ongoing session of the UN Human Rights Council, the International Association for Religious Freedom (IARF) took the floor to address a critical but often overlooked intersection of human rights: the right of Indigenous Peoples to access and care for their ancestral burial sites when those sites are located on privately owned land.
The statement was delivered during the Interactive Dialogue with Dr. Nazila Ghanea, the UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief, responding to her latest report on how freedom of religion or belief relates to death and honouring the deceased.
Watch the Oral Statement
The Regulatory Gap: Private Property vs. Sacred Duties
While many States have established protections for sacred and burial sites, these frameworks frequently suffer from a significant blind spot. Protections are often conditioned on government action or apply strictly to publicly managed lands.
When ancestral lands and burial sites fall into private hands or under private residential governance, Indigenous communities are frequently severed from their heritage. Without national frameworks extending to private property, communities are left without legal recourse to fulfill their religious and cultural duties to their ancestors.
Grounding the Issue: Kāneʻākī Heiau in Hawaiʻi
To illustrate the profound impact of this regulatory gap, IARF highlighted the situation at the Kāneʻākī Heiau site in Mākaha, Hawaiʻi. Here, Native Hawaiian practitioners face immense barriers—enforced by private residential governance—when seeking to access and care for their iwi kūpuna (ancestral remains).
This is not an isolated incident. The full scale of this problem remains largely undocumented globally, leaving many Indigenous communities silently cut off from their most sacred sites.
IARF’s Call to Action
In our statement to the Human Rights Council, the IARF urged States to take the following crucial steps:
- Conduct Systematic Assessments: States must actively document sacred and burial sites affected by private land governance.
- Develop Effective Frameworks: We need concrete legislative and policy solutions that balance private property rights with the fundamental human right to manifest religion and care for the deceased.
We look forward to continuing this vital conversation with the Special Rapporteur and UN Member States to ensure that honoring the deceased is a right guaranteed to all, regardless of modern property lines.
Full Transcript of the Oral Statement
Interactive Dialogue with the Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief 3 March 2026
“Mr. President,
The International Association for Religious Freedom welcomes Special Rapporteur Ghanea’s report on freedom of religion and honouring the deceased. We particularly appreciate paragraph four, which highlights the barriers Indigenous Peoples face in accessing burial lands to honour their ancestors.
In many States, protections for burial sites are conditioned on government action or apply only to publicly managed lands. This leaves a significant regulatory gap when such sites fall within privately owned or governed land. Without national frameworks extending to these contexts, private property mechanisms can effectively sever Indigenous communities from their ancestral heritage.
As an illustrative example, at the Kāneʻākī Heiau site in Hawaiʻi, Native Hawaiian practitioners face profound barriers—enforced by private residential governance—when seeking to access and care for their iwi kūpuna, their ancestral remains.
We note that the full scale of this problem remains largely undocumented, and we encourage States to undertake systematic assessments of sacred and burial sites affected by private land governance, as a necessary first step toward effective frameworks that balance property rights with the fundamental right to manifest religion and care for the deceased.
Special Rapporteur, what concrete legislative or policy best practices have proven effective in enabling States to reconcile private land governance with the protection of Indigenous Peoples’ rights to access and care for sacred and burial sites?
Thank you.”
Further Reading:
- Read the Special Rapporteur’s full report (A/HRC/61/50)
The UNDP Learning for Future course on ‘Indigenous Participation at the UN’ [https://learningfornature.org/en/courses/indigenous-peoples-at-the-united-nations-project-access-online] has been a blessing for all my works with traditional communities worldwide, assisting in engaging new policymakers.
Creating Sacred Natural Sites custodians programmes [https://sacrednaturalsites.org/custodians] under the IUCN standards [https://portals.iucn.org/library/sites/library/files/documents/PAG-021.pdf] has also been an imprescindible measure for our interfaith diplomacy works that allowed the RfP Interfaith Rainforest Initiative (IRI) charter [https://interfaithrainforest.org/faiths-for-forests-declaration].