ISSN: 2772-9486
Do Indigenous Communities’ Special Rights Impose Special Obligations on States to Protect the Environment? By Charlotte Parker*
ABSTRACT This note examines the existing legislative and judicial framework in Latin America offering protection and conferring rights to the indigenous communities in the region. This is focused particularly on the extension of territorial related rights based on indigenous communities’ relationship to their territory, to serve as a basis for possible future protection. The note considers if past judicial interpretations of the Interamerican Court of Human Rights, of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and the American Convention on Human Rights, could be repeated in light of an expected growth of climate migration in Latin America, resulting in the protection of rights intrinsic to indigenous communities. The note will consider past decisions, which extended rights and increased protection for indigenous communities, and whether this could be mirrored to ensure the conservation of indigenous rights for climate migration.
*
LL.B. Candidate, International and European Law Program, The Hague University of Applied Sciences.
2022 issue 1 ILSA Law Journal
59
