Standing Rock Sioux Takes Pipeline Fight to UN Human Rights Council in Geneva

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

The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe took its fight to halt construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline to the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva, Switzerland, on Tuesday in a bid to gather international opposition to the project, NBC News reported.

Standing Rock Chairman Dave Archambault II addressed the 49-member Council in a brief two-minute testimony where he called "upon all parties to stop the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline."

Archambault said the U.S. government had failed to abide by signed treaties with the tribe — referring to the 1851 Treaty of Traverse de Sioux and 1868 Treaty of Fort Laramie, two legally-binding treaties ratified by the U.S. Senate that recognize the Sioux's national sovereignty.

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