From terra nullius to Indigenous collective land rights: cases before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights

Abstract

Since 2001, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights has issued 14 sentences requiring the states to protect collective land ownership rights of Indigenous peoples and tribal groups that descend from the syncretism of Indigenous and African peoples. The objective is to assess the level of compliance of international responsibilities by offending states and the main difficulties that have hindered the process up to now. An initial set of typologies of the outcomes is presented, together with some general patterns concerning the challenges that remain for the effective legal protection of collective land ownership rights in Central and South America. Findings are based on the analysis of the documentation produced by the Court concerning these cases. Presently, Nicaragua is the only state that has completely fulfilled its orders.