UNDRIP Report - English FINAL - International Forum on Globalization

going to Peru to continue the conversation on
implementation and to ask Peru to not go forward
with Decree 1090.
Atossa Soltani of Amazon Watch commented that a
vote on the US–Colombia Free Trade Agreement
would be coming up soon, in the lame duck session
of US Congress in November. If it doesn’t pass in
November, it is very likely that the next Congress
would approve it. So it is really important to
organize on the grassroots level to defeat the deal,
Soltani believes.
Amazon Watch supports the U’wa people of
Colombia, who ejected Occidental Petroleum out of
their territories in 2002. Almost 1,000 U’wa marched
to the territory where Occidental Petroleum was
operating an oil well and occupied that land on
Columbus Day and for the three days that followed.
However, the U’wa people, a traditional indigenous
tribe living in the cloud forests of northeastern
Colombia, continue to be threatened by the state oil
companies, she added. In coordination with the
U’wa, Amazon Watch is launching a new campaign
to address privatization, Soltani explained. The U’wa
will go to Wall Street to tell investors not to buy
Colombian state oil stocks.
Soltani also addressed the conflicts over indigenous
peoples’ lands in Colombia, which are occurring
between the military, the paramilitary, the guerilla
military, and the indigenous peoples. Indigenous
peoples believe that these conflicts are fabricated,
according to Soltani. She believes that the indigenous
peoples are being forced off their land specifically so
that large corporations can come in and develop
biofuels, oil and gas. This has given the military a
pretext to militarize the U’wa land, she believes.
Soltani added that the reforms that are going on
under the bilateral trade agreements relate to
streamlining the approval for large-scale industrial
projects, such as environmental licenses for an oil
project, accelerating the time frame and leaving out
any participation or recourse for communities.
On a note of hope, Soltani concluded, indigenous
peoples in Colombia continue to assert their
subsurface rights, such as titles from the King of
Spain, dating back to the 1700s. This gives them
absolute rights to the land, including the right to the
subsurface minerals.
Janet Redman of the Institute for Policy Studies
asked two questions. First she asked if the Lacey Act
that Fitzgerald had mentioned before, which puts
restraints on illegal imports from illegal logging,
could be invoked with regard to biofuels. And if it
could, is the Lacey Act WTO-proof, or what would
the implications be for the WTO?
Redman also asked, “In terms of small-scale
renewable energies that would be proposed or
modeled by indigenous communities, what are the
threats and opportunities to implementing <strong>UNDRIP</strong>
in trade policy around small-scale renewables?”
Aaron Goldzimer of the Environmental Defense
Fund answered that the Lacey Act bars the import of
harvested plant products. He said that he believes
that Fitzgerald’s proposal was to extend it to illegal
poaching and logging.
Victor Menotti of the IFG added that where the
Lacey Act could provoke a legal challenge as a
violation of the WTO’s Agreement on Technical
Barriers to Trade (TBT) is that it puts an undue
burden on a country to provide additional
information. “That’s the problem with trade policy,”
Menotti said. “Such broad and vague powers are
given to exporters and corporations that they can
challenge any policy measure; Just about anything is
actionable.” On the Renewable Fuel Standards
promoting biofuels, Brazil and possibly Malaysia
have hinted that they might challenge the social and
environmental criteria that Europe and the US are
developing as a violation of TBT, Menotti explained.
Trevor Stevenson of Amazon Alliance said that, in
Colombia, the march on Columbus Day started with
a few thousand indigenous peoples marching
peacefully, protesting a number of things. The
Colombian military then attacked them, killed a
couple of people and wounded many others. In
reaction, the indigenous march grew enormously. As
of Saturday night, October 25, 2008, there were about
60,000 indigenous peoples marching toward the
capital. The president of Colombia had to meet with
the leaders of the march in order to negotiate a
resolution.
This is an example of the tremendous power that
indigenous peoples have on the ground, a power that
is frequently forgotten in the Global North,
Stevenson believes. Indigenous peoples have proven
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