Yesterday, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights published a landmark ruling in the case of Pueblos Indígenas Tagaeri y Taromenane v. Ecuador, the first case in its 45-year history to address the rights of Indigenous peoples living in voluntary isolation. The case concerns Ecuador’s international responsibility for the violation of the rights of the Tagaeri and Taromenane Peoples — names attributed by Western society to two groups of the Waorani people from the western Ecuadorian Amazon who live in isolation in their ancestral territories. The case also extends to other voluntarily isolated peoples of the Eastern Amazon, whose territories, resources, and way of life were severely impacted by extractive activities. While Ecuador had designated a protected area (Zona Intangible Tagaeri Taromenane or ZITT) to prohibit extractive activities and prevent external interference, it failed to enforce territorial protections, allowing continued encroachment by oil companies and illegal loggers. The case also concerns three instances of violent events — in 2003, 2006, and 2013 — that led to the deaths of…
Indigenous Peoples
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Extraction and Indigenous Culture: UN Bodies’ Views on the Indigenous Right to Culture, the Indigenous Right to Land, and Resource Extraction
In October 2024, the Committees on the Rights of the Child (CCRC) and Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR) published their Views in three communications against Finland. Both Committees concluded that the country had violated the rights of individuals in the Kova-Labba Siida (a Sámi community) by granting a…
Drowning Out Voices: The Harmful Impact of Marine Protection Privatization on Indigenous Peoples
Over the past few decades, the use of market-based financial instruments to protect the environment has gained increasing attention. Innovative debt-for-ocean conservation swaps model is a case in point. These debt swaps allow heavily indebted developing countries with a considerable marine area to create some fiscal space by restructuring their existing debt. In exchange for the debt reduction,…
Can the global framework on biodiversity truly deliver on respecting nature’s intrinsic value? A call for COP 16 to implement non-market approaches to the global biodiversity targets
Introduction Globally, biodiversity is in crisis with one million species under threat of extinction and rapid declines in ecosystem functioning, overreaching planetary boundaries. International law initiatives to address this massive decline in biodiversity are led by the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). Between 21 October and 1 November 2024, the city of Cali…
The Lhaka Honhat Case Of The Inter-American Court Of Human Rights: The Long-Awaited Granting Of 400,000 Hectares Under Communal Property Rights
On 6 February 2020, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (the Court) delivered a judgment in which it declared the international responsibility of the Argentine Republic for the violation of diverse rights of 132 indigenous communities of the Salta province, organised under the Lhaka Honhat Association. This is the first time the Court has condemned…
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