UNDRIP in Practice: The Xi-Amaru Republic as a Model of Indigenous Self-Governance
From Declaration to Practice: Why Implementation Is the Harder Conversation
UNDRIP was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 2007. Since then, it has been cited in courtrooms, quoted in policy papers, and invoked in international forums. But the question that often goes unanswered in those spaces is the most important one: what does UNDRIP actually look like when a people decides to live it?
Across the Americas and around the world, Indigenous peoples and nations are working out that answer in different ways — through cultural preservation efforts, legal challenges, governance structures, land stewardship, and the rebuilding of institutions that displacement dismantled. There is no single model. The expression of Indigenous self-governance is as varied as the peoples who hold it.
The Xi-Amaru Republic is one example of what UNDRIP implementation can look like — specifically, what it looks like when an Indigenous people decides to build a functioning nation grounded in international law, Christian foundation, and a clear commitment to exercising the rights UNDRIP affirms. It is not the only model. But it is a concrete one, and it is worth examining in detail.
The Scope of UNDRIP’s Vision: More Than One Category of Rights
One of the most important things to understand about UNDRIP is that it does not limit Indigenous governance to any single area of life. The rights it affirms span every dimension of what it means to be a people: identity, culture, spirituality, land, language, governance, economics, and law. A nation building under UNDRIP has the legal foundation to address all of these — not just some.
The following articles, all from the official UN text, illustrate the full scope of what UNDRIP protects:
These articles — alongside Articles 3, 4, 5, 33, and 34 — form a comprehensive legal framework. Together they establish that an Indigenous nation operating under UNDRIP has legitimate authority over its cultural life, its spiritual practices, its language, its governance structures, its legal procedures, and its citizenship. This is the foundation the Xi-Amaru Republic stands on.
How the Xi-Amaru Republic Implements UNDRIP
The Xi-Amaru Republic was established on December 17, 2022. It operates through the Aboriginal Ministry of Justice, which serves as the administrative body of the nation. The Republic does not claim to be the only Indigenous nation implementing UNDRIP — it claims to be doing so with intentionality, transparency, and a clear legal framework that others can examine, reference, and learn from.
What follows is a breakdown of how specific UNDRIP articles are applied within the Republic’s current governance structure — including areas that are fully operational, and areas where the legal foundation exists and development is ongoing.
Articles 3 and 4 — Self-Determination and Autonomous Governance
The Republic exercises self-determination (Article 3) through its existence as an independently declared nation. It exercises autonomous governance (Article 4) through the AMJ, which administers the Republic’s procedures, issues binding determinations, maintains national records, and finances its operations through application fees as authorized by Article 4’s financing clause.
These are fully operational. Every citizenship application processed, every determination issued, every record maintained is this authority in action.
Article 9 — The Right to Belong
Article 9 is exercised through the Republic’s two citizenship pathways — the Tribal Citizenship Procedure and the ARK Citizenship Procedure. Each begins with an eligibility step: Tribal Screening for those with Indigenous lineage or married to an active citizen, and ARK Eligibility for Christian individuals and families aligned with Kingdom Culture values. Every person who receives citizenship through either pathway is exercising their right to belong to an Indigenous nation in accordance with that nation’s traditions and customs. The Republic ensures that no discrimination arises from the exercise of that right.
Article 8 — Protection Against Assimilation
The very existence of the Xi-Amaru Republic is an exercise of Article 8. By establishing a nation with its own identity, governance, and cultural framework, the Republic creates a protected space where Indigenous peoples and their aligned community cannot be absorbed into systems that would erase what makes them distinct. The Kingdom Culture framework — the spiritual and values foundation of the Republic — is itself a protection against cultural dissolution.
Article 12 — Spiritual and Religious Traditions
The Republic is explicitly founded on a Christian, Kingdom Culture framework. The right to manifest, practise, develop, and teach spiritual and religious traditions is central to what the Republic is. Kingdom Culture is not a policy layer on top of the nation. It is the nation’s spiritual foundation. Article 12 gives this full international legal protection.
Articles 11 and 13 — Cultural and Language Preservation
These rights — to practise and revitalize cultural traditions, to transmit histories, languages, and oral traditions to future generations — represent areas where the Republic’s legal authority is fully established under UNDRIP and where institutional development is actively ongoing. The framework exists. The Republic has the right and the mandate. Programs, archives, and preservation structures are areas of continued growth as the nation develops.
Articles 33 and 34 — Citizenship and Legal Systems
As covered in Article 4 of this series, the Republic exercises its Article 33 membership authority as citizenship through two pathways: the Tribal Citizenship Procedure and the ARK Citizenship Procedure. Each pathway is preceded by its eligibility step — Tribal Screening and ARK Eligibility respectively — which determines whether an applicant may proceed to the full citizenship procedure. The Article 34 legal system encompasses these procedures and the broader institutional infrastructure: contracts, official determinations, NAE tax verification documentation, and employer non-compliance processes administered by the AMJ. These are operational.
A Pioneer Nation in Active Development
The Xi-Amaru Republic describes itself as a pioneer nation — which means it is building something that has not been fully built before in this form. Some aspects of governance are fully operational. Others are in active development. This is honest, and it matters.
What is important to understand is that for every area of governance — whether fully operational or still developing — the legal foundation under UNDRIP is already established. The rights are affirmed. The authority exists. Development means building the institutional expression of that authority, not waiting to earn the right to exercise it.
This is what makes the Xi-Amaru Republic a useful model to study: it shows that Indigenous self-governance does not require perfection to be legitimate. It requires a solid legal foundation, transparent procedures, and the courage to build. The Republic has all three.
Why This Matters for the Broader Conversation
The Xi-Amaru Republic exists within a global movement of Indigenous peoples reclaiming governance, identity, and standing. Other nations and communities around the world are doing similar work — some with more institutional infrastructure, some with less, some through entirely different frameworks. That diversity is a feature of Indigenous sovereignty, not a contradiction of it.
What the Xi-Amaru Republic contributes to that broader conversation is a clear, documented, publicly accessible example of an Indigenous nation using the UNDRIP framework to build governance from the ground up — without federal recognition, without inherited infrastructure, and without waiting for outside permission. For researchers, policymakers, legal advocates, and other Indigenous communities exploring what this looks like in practice, the Republic’s model offers a concrete reference point.
Explore the Model
Visit aboriginalministryofjustice.org/citizenship-pathway to see how the Xi-Amaru Republic applies UNDRIP across its governance structure — and to learn how you can become part of an Indigenous nation actively building on this foundation.
