## Facts

- Chief Bernard Ominayak submitted an individual communication on behalf of members of the Lubicon Lake Band, an Indigenous Cree community in northern Alberta whose culture and subsistence depended on hunting, trapping, and fishing on traditional lands.
- The Band asserted long-standing occupation and use of a large traditional territory and maintained that Canadian legal arrangements had recognized their ability to continue a traditional way of life.
- Beginning in the late 1970s, Alberta permitted extensive oil and gas exploration and related industrial activity in the traditional territory while land claims remained unresolved.
- The Band alleged that development damaged traplines and wildlife habitat, undermined subsistence activities, and led to severe social and health harms within the community.
- Canada disputed the extent of harm, pointed to competing Indigenous claims in the region, and argued that effective domestic remedies remained available.
- During the proceeding, the Committee requested interim measures to prevent irreparable harm while the communication was pending.
- The Committee declared the communication admissible principally as raising issues under ICCPR article 27; it did not entertain the self-determination claim under article 1 as directly justiciable through the Optional Protocol’s individual-complaint procedure.

## Issues

1. Whether Canada’s authorization and regulation of large-scale resource development on the Lubicon Lake Band’s traditional lands interfered with the article 27 right of persons belonging to a minority to enjoy their culture in community with others.
2. Whether, in light of alleged ongoing and potentially irreversible harm, the communication was admissible despite Canada’s exhaustion-of-domestic-remedies objections.
3. What remedial steps were required under the Covenant, including whether establishing reserve lands could constitute an appropriate remedy.

## Decision

- The Committee found that developments on the Band’s traditional lands threatened their way of life and violated ICCPR article 27.
- The Committee made no separate merits finding under ICCPR article 1 because that claim was not addressed as such through the Optional Protocol mechanism.
- The Committee regarded the establishment of reserve land as potentially an appropriate remedy under the Covenant, contingent on effective implementation that protects the Band members’ ability to maintain their culture.

## Legal Principles

- ICCPR article 27 protects minority cultural enjoyment in community, including traditional economic and social practices that are integral to an Indigenous group’s culture (e.g., hunting, trapping, and subsistence use of resources).
- A state may violate article 27 not only through direct interference but also by permitting or failing to control third-party activities (including private resource extraction) that substantially threaten the survival of a minority’s culture.
- In assessing admissibility and exhaustion, the effectiveness and timeliness of domestic remedies matter, particularly where prolonged proceedings risk making cultural harm irreversible.
- Where a breach is found, the state must take measures that effectively secure the protected cultural practices; remedial proposals are insufficient if they do not, in practice, prevent further impairment of article 27 rights.

## Conclusion

The Committee concluded that Canada breached ICCPR article 27 by allowing resource development that threatened the Lubicon Lake Band members’ land-based cultural and subsistence practices, and it indicated that a land-based settlement could be an appropriate remedy only if implemented in a way that effectively protects the community’s ability to maintain its culture.


Bernard Ominayak & Lubicon Lake Band v. Canada, Commc’n No. 167/1984, U.N. Doc. CCPR/C/38/D/167/1984 (Hum. Rts. Comm. 1990)