Avoided Deforestation (REDD) and Indigenous ... - Amazon Fund

internal debates on this issue, preferably creating their own regulatory initiatives and proposals
which guarantee respect for their territorial rights, direct access to the benefits derived from
REDD activities, as well as their political rights to self-determination and a guarantee that the
State will comply with their obligation of consulting and obtaining the free, prior and informed
consent of indigenous peoples before implementing administrative and legislative decisions
which directly affect them.
The incorporation of domestic regulations relating to REDD in indigenous territories in
the Amazon Basin will necessarily require the consideration of the recognized and consolidated
rights of the indigenous people in the entire region.
In the Amazon Basin, the large majority of the countries currently are signatories to
international norms that recognize and protect the rights of the indigenous and similar people3 such as: Convention 169 of the International Labour Organization regarding indigenous and
tribal people in independent countries (hereafter ILO C169), the United Nations Declaration on
the Rights of Indigenous People (hereafter UNDRIP) 4 and the American Convention on Human
Rights (hereafter ACHR), which have been widely interpreted by the Inter-American Court and
Commission for Human Rights as guaranteeing the rights of indigenous and tribal people on
the continent, among other Human Rights instruments recognized to varying degrees by all
countries in the basin.
In the Amazon, almost every country has already ratified the ILO C169 (with the exception
of the Guyanas and Suriname), and the vast majority, except Colombia, approved the UNDRIP in
September 2007. All countries in the basin ratified the ACHR and recognize the Jurisdiction of
the Inter-American Human Rights System (hereafter IHRS). 5 By contrast, in other regions of the
world indigenous people do not have a legal body of recognized rights of the same dimension
and institutional establishment as on the Latin American subcontinent.
3 “Indigenous and similar people” is an expression used by the Inter-American Human Rights Court (hereafter IHR
Court) to refer to those groups which, though not indigenous, have cultural, social and economic characteristics which
that set them apart from the majority of the national population, and which constitute them as cultural minorities who
enjoy the same distinct rights that are granted to indigenous peoples. See the case of Saramaka Párr. 80.
4 By a vote of 143 in favor and 4 against, with 11 abstentions, the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted,
on September 13, 2007, the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People (http://www.un.org/
News/Press/docs/2007/ga10612.htm).
5 The Inter-American Human Rights System (hereafter IHRS) includes the Inter-American Commission on Human
Rights (hereafter ICHR) and the IHR Court, which have a large and established case law regarding the fundamental
rights of indigenous people in the region. The IHRS requires all American States to comply with human rights
norms in their particular interpretation for indigenous people as collective subjects of fundamental rights.
26 Av o i d e d d e f o re s t A t i o n (redd) A n d i n d i g e n o u s p e o p l e s: experiences, chAllenges A n d o p p o r t u n i t i e s in t h e A m A zo n c o n t e x t