Confronting Indigenous Peoples Rights to Resource Extraction in Latin America

2013 (Presenter Daniel Lopes Cerqueira, Human Rights Specialist for the Inter-American Commissian on Human Rights) - During the last decade, the number and intensity of social conflicts in Latin America have significantly increased, threatening democratic governance and stability. While the cause of these conflicts varies, a significant portion of them, and some may argue the most explosive, are associated with the extraction and management of natural resources. Latin America’s indigenous peoples face challenges that are mainly related to the tension that exists between the rights of indigenous groups to their land, territory, and natural resources and the rights of States to use and exploit these lands. There are an increasing number of judicial decisions regarding the extraction of natural resources in Latin America and indigenous people’s rights. Now indigenous groups have an international legal framework to demand that their rights be respected fully. This lecture was recorded at "The Quest for Global Environmental Equity in an Increasingly Inequitable World," the Elizabeth Babbott Conant & Christian A. Johnson Endeavor Foundation Conference on the Environment on April 18, 19, and 20, 2013. https://www.conncoll.edu/academics/majors-departments-programs/majors-and-minors/goodwin-niering-center-for-the-environment/conferences/the-quest-for-global-environmental-equity/