The experience of urban Indigenous groups as rights bearers is a relatively new enquiry in International Relations and international human rights literature, despite the fact that more than half of all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples now reside in Australia’s urban and inner regional areas. In 2007, the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) passed the United Nations General Assembly with overwhelming support. A key aspect of UNDRIP is the protection it offers to the cultural rights of Indigenous peoples, including the ability of Indigenous groups at the local level to define their own identity and to have their connection to Country and their right to speak for Country recognised by the wider community. It can be argued that in contemporary urban Australia these rights are often ignored. This thesis examines the factors influencing Aboriginal identity in the urban environment of the Gold Coast, on Kombumerri Country, and the extent to which UNDRIP can support or constrain the exercise of, or recognition of, cultural rights of urban Aboriginal peoples.