Ms. Tonya Gonnella Frichner Onondaga Nation, Six Nations Iroquois Confederacy Haudenosaunee - United States Occupation: Attorney, President and Founder, American Indian Law Alliance, a NGO in Consultative Status with the United Nations Economic & Social Council UNPFII Portfolio: Environment, Human Rights, Gender and Women's Issues, Housing, Urban Indigenous Issues, Protection of Traditional Knowledge and Indigenous Intellectual Property EDUCATION 1987: graduated and awarded Juris Doctor from The City University of New York School of Law, New York, New York 1980: graduated, magna cum laude, awarded a Bachelor of Science from St John s University, New York, New York PROFESSIONAL CAREER 2007 present: Associate Professor of Native American History, Law and Human Rights 1989 present: President and Founder of the American Indian Law Alliance, a NGO in Consultative Status with the United Nations Economic & Social Council 1987 - present: Legal Council and Member of the Board of Directors to the Iroquois Nationals Lacrosse Project, the national team of the Haudenosaunee 1987: Legal Council to the Haudenosaunee at UN Sub-Commission on Human Rights Working Group on Indigenous Populations, drafting UN Declaration on Rights of Indigenous Peoples
1987: Staff Attorney, Judicial Commission on Minorities for the State of New York Court of Appeals 1983: Founder and Executive Director, Circle of Red Nations (CORN), Native American Community Institution OTHER ACTIVITIES Attended the following United Nations Conferences: 2008 Commission on Sustainable Development and preparatory meetings 2002 Beijing +5 Women: Gender Equality, Development and Peace for the Twenty- First Century and preparatory meetings 2002 Earth Summit, Rio+10 and preparatory meetings 2002 Conference on Human Settlements (Habitat 1) and preparatory meetings 2001 World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance and preparatory meetings 1993 World Conference on Human Rights and preparatory meetings 1992 Convention on Biological Diversity and preparatory meetings 1992 Earth Summit, and preparatory meetings Vice-Chairperson of the Board of Directors for the Seventh Generation Fund for Indian Development Founding Board Member of The Ingrid Washinawatok El Issa Flying Eagle Woman Fund for Peace, Justice and Sovereignty Chairperson of the Board of Directors of the Fund for the Four Directions Board of Directors: City University of New York School of Law; Lawyers Committee on Nuclear Non-proliferation; Native American Council of New York; National Ethnic Coalition for Organizations and others Member of the Boarding School Healing Project PUBLISHED ARTICLES
Authored and co-authored several periodical articles, as well as the biographical focus in several books and textbooks (contact aila@ailanyc.org) AWARDS RECEIVED The Spirit Award for International Service, American Indian Community House, Inc The Harriet Tubman Humanitarian Achievement Award Female Role Model of the Year (one of 10) of the Ms. Foundation for Women The Thunderbird Indian of the Year Award The Ellis Island Medal of Honor The New York County Lawyers Association Award for Outstanding Public Service The Alston Bannerman Award; and others Tonya Gonnella Frichner, Esq. Snipe Clan, Onondaga Nation, Haudenosaunee, Iroquois Confederacy North American Regional Representative to the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues President and Founder of the American Indian Law Alliance Citizen of the Onondaga Nation of the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) Confederacy, Ms. Tonya Gonnella Frichner is Vice Chair of the Seventh Generation Fund for Indian Development, and Founder and President of the American Indian Law Alliance. An educator, advocate and renowned Native woman leader, Ms. Frichner s excellent and dedicated work on behalf of Indigenous Peoples rights radiates throughout North America and beyond, into other areas of the Indigenous world. Her more than twenty years of focused work on Indigenous rights and issues, including the protection of our lands, territories, intellectual properties, human rights, and cultural survival, have at all times exemplified the unique qualities of an international advocate and diplomat of outstanding merit and distinction. Ms. Frichner has a lifetime of experience for the role of North American Regional Representative to the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues. Her skills were first shaped by her Onondaga people s history and culture, and then perfected through her two decades of frontline work at the United Nations and other international fora. Born and raised on her people s traditional territories in what is known as the state of New York, Ms. Frichner s life has been guided and defined by the rich international advocacy heritage of the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) Confederacy, as well as by the excellent oratory and critical thinking skills she learned directly from her chiefs and clan mothers whose ancestors were the first Indigenous Nation to execute a treaty with the new United States in 1776. The Confederacy s international dynamism resonated again when in 1923, Deskahe, a Cayuga Chief and member of the Haudenosaunee, traveled to
Geneva to draw the attention of the League of Nations to Haudenosaunee treaties and their unilateral abrogation by the United States and Canadian governments. Although Deskahe was not allowed to speak to the world family of nations, his vision and determination set the stage for future international advocacy and human rights work by Indigenous Peoples of the Americas, and quite possibly, the world. This legacy has impressed upon Ms. Frichner the power and efficacy of an Indigenous presence in international relations, and also the critical significance of treaty rights and obligations between Nation states and Indigenous Nations. Ms. Frichner holds this unique knowledge base and understanding of the significant historical role of treaties paramount in her relationships and thinking. Clearly such a perspective is a great benefit to her role in the UN Permanent Forum. As stated, Ms. Frichner has devoted herself to the pursuit of human rights for Indigenous Peoples, at home locally, regionally in North America, and abroad. To prepare for this task, our sister earned a Bachelor of Science Degree, magna cum laude, from St. Johns University in New York City, and a Juris Doctor Degree from the City University of New York School of Law where she now serves as a member of its Board of Visitors. As Adjunct Professor of American Indian History, Law, and Human Rights at Manhattanville College in New York, and member of various NGO organizations in New York and elsewhere. Ms Frichner is a founding board member of the Ingrid Washinawatok El Issa Flying Eagle Woman Fund for Justice, Peace and Sovereignty, a chairperson on the board of directors for the Fund of the Four Directions, and serves as legal council and member of the board of directors to the Iroquois Nationals Lacrosse Project, the national team of the Haudenosaunee. Ms. Frichner also reaches out to engage a range of constituencies in North America, and to educate young Indigenous students in the many facets of international human rights law and advocacy, particularly in how such issues and diplomatic methods pertain to the situation of the world s Indigenous Peoples. In 1987, shortly after graduating from law school, Ms. Frichner was appointed a delegate of, and legal counsel to, the Haudenosaunee at the United Nations Sub- Commission on Human Rights Working Group on Indigenous Populations in Geneva, Switzerland, which was then drawing up the UN Draft Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. At the same time she founded the American Indian Law Alliance (AILA), which is one of very few Indigenous organizations in North America that enjoys Special Consultative Status with the United Nations Economic and Social Coucil. AILA has long participated in the drafting process of the Declaration ever since and is widely recognized as having given invaluable input to its content. Through such work, Ms. Frichner has been an active and fully engaged participant, contributing respected legal, political, and diplomatic advice in virtually all Indigenous activities centered on Indigenous Peoples needs and rights at the United Nations and the Organization of American States. As the Vice Chair of the Seventh Generation Fund for Indigenous Development (an Indigenous-centered and Indigenous-implemented initiative non-governmental organization), Ms. Frichner is a key leader, and in particular, has expertly helped guide the organization, and the many of Indigenous Nations and non-governmental
organizations it serves, in the specific arena of international human rights and Indigenous Peoples. Lawyer, diplomat, activist, Onondaga daughter, and the oldest of eight siblings, Tonya Gonnella Frichner continues to work closely with elders from the Haudenosaunee Confederacy as well as the Onondaga, Mohawk, and Lakota Nations (such as the Teton Sioux Nation Treaty Council), among others. She is known and cherished as a facilitator of knowledge and power for Indigenous Nations and grassroots Indigenous peoples, making it a priority to attend a wide range of Indigenous gatherings in the United States, Canada, and Latin America to build relationships and provide invaluable information, assistance and training to groups in these regions. Through community based strategies, Ms. Frichner has provided Indigenous Nations, communities, non-governmental organizations, youth and elders with the information and skills needed to better understand the United Nations processes and significant bodies, to remain informed of developments at the United Nations and Organization of American States such as the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, so that they may directly engage with these bodies. Such accessible and culturally relevant capacity building for Indigenous Peoples in North America is highly unusual, and Ms. Frichner s leadership has meant changed lives, perspectives, and capacities in the Indigenous Nations and Peoples of this region. All who know Ms. Frichner recognize how principled and transparent she is in her work. These traits are essential in a member of the UN Permanent Forum considering how Forum members must collaborate with Indigenous groups and Nations that, impacted by a long and brutal history of colonization, now increasingly and rightfully insist that collaboration be based on the traditional Indigenous values of respect and integrity. Not only has Ms. Frichner accumulated this remarkable record of advocacy on behalf of Peoples rights to their lands, territories, intellectual properties, cultural vitality and other resources, she has in fact conducted this advocacy at all times in a manner that does honor to her peoples and life ways. Ms. Frichner knows how to achieve in community with others, substantive and long-term results of great benefit to the collective good. In sum, in the next few years the Forum will be moving from laying the foundations of its relationship with the United Nations and other international agencies to actually promoting critically needed policies and programs in line with the provisions of the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples that was adopted September 2007 by the UN General Assembly.