Ever since the arrival of the European colonisers, theories of international law have been used to justify the process of dispossession of indigenous lands. Even though the adoption of human rights have led to some amelioration, the author claims that this has proved unsatisfactory to address indigenous concerns for one reason: international law remains deeply rooted in colonial concepts, such as the concepts of ‘sovereignty’ and ‘property’.

El presente trabajo se concentra en el estudio del desplazamiento forzado generado principalmente por los grupos paramilitares en el trascurso de los dos gobiernos del Presidente Álvaro Uribe Vélez (2002 - 2010).

Nesse artigo, pretendemos mostrar como um certo ideal de índio permeia as utopias indigenistas do Estado brasileiro e como a política de isolamento, influenciada por esses ideais, apresenta suas idiossincrasias e contradições. Apresentamos um estudo sobre os conflitos recentes na Terra Indígena Vale do Javari (AM) que levaram à morte violenta de índios Korubo e Matis, considerados pelo governo respectivamente como “isolados” e de “recente contato”. Analisamos a história do conflito a partir das narrativas indigenistas e dos indígenas.

As reflexões e discussões contidas neste artigo são oriundas de ações realizadas no projeto “Interface entre extensão e pesquisa no acompanhamento de empreendimentos econômicos e solidários em comunidades tradicionais e áreas de quilombo no território da Cidadania na Baixada Cuiabana MT”.

This report assesses the role of the World Bank in the funding and management of the Chad-Cameroon oil and pipeline project. The report argues that the project has fueled violence, impoverished people in the oil fields and along the pipeline route, exacerbated the pressures on indigenous peoples and created new environmental problems. The report highlights how the World Bank’s Implementation Completion Report (ICR) is inconsistent with other independent reports on the project.

This paper discusses issues surrounding indigenous land rights, sharing an understanding and information about land tenure and titling within Latin America. The study focuses on examples from the country level, with the aim of influencing policy coherence and legislation.In particular, Chapter four of this document examines the implications of indigenous land tenure for natural resource management, using case studies from Colombia, Costa Rica, Panama and Peru.

This Working Paper from the German Institute of Global and Area Studies argues that new legislation in Peru will not help to turn prior consultations into a tool for conflict resolution as long as the normative framework itself is contested and the necessary basic conditions are not in place.

The participatory rights of indigenous peoples have been at the center of conflicts over resource extraction, which have recently increased in number and intensity across Latin America. Using comprehensive empirical data about the Guaraníes’ participation in Bolivia’s gas sector, this study finds that competing claims regarding territory, property, participation, and decision making provide important explanations for contestations over consultation practices and legal norms in the country.

It argues that the main conflicts can be explained by:

This document summarises the main points in the conclusions and recommendations sections of the World Bank’s Final Report of the Extractive Industries Review (EIR). The document focuses particularly on a few of the issues touched upon in the report, such as indigenous peoples’ rights, human rights generally, World Bank accountability/institutional issues, and the definition of poverty and sustainable development.The Final Report recognises that if the World Bank Group is to comply with its mandate, strict conditions must be applied to Extractive Industry (EI) projects.

Programmes to reduce emissions from deforestation and ecosystem degradation, including REDD+ and Payment for Environmental Services (PES), could represent an opportunity to strengthen processes of conservation, sustainable usage and poverty reduction in the Mesoamerican region, particularly in indigenous territories and communities. This report draws on case studies from Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua and Panama to demonstrate how land tenure rights are linked to incentive mechanisms for good forestry management.

Through an analysis of the right to adequate food and the right to land, this civil society report, argued that achieving food sovereignty requires agrarian reform.

Costa Rica, the subject of this article, is an upper middle income country that is widely regarded as having a generally positive human rights record. It has also avoided the violent conflicts and political instability that have characterised most of its closest neighbours in the last decades of the 20th century. However, as with almost all other countries considered to have good track records on human rights, the situation of indigenous peoples stands out as a major blemish.