Case of the Kichwa Indigenous People of Sarayaku vs. Ecuador (Case before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights)

On April 26, 2010, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) filed a lawsuit against the Ecuadorian State before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. This action was brought by the Association of the Kichwa People of Sarayaku, denouncing the unauthorized entry of the Argentine company Compañía General de Combustibles (CGC) and the Ecuadorian security forces into their territory between 2002 and 2003. These actions sought to carry out hydrocarbon exploration and exploitation without prior consultation or consent from the people, causing serious environmental, cultural, and economic damage.

The intervention included the destruction of flora of high cultural and environmental value, as well as violent clashes that endangered the lives and safety of the Sarayaku people. These actions violated fundamental rights recognized by both national legislation and international instruments.

Implementation

The Inter-American Court of Human Rights declared that Ecuador violated the rights to prior, free, and informed consultation, communal property, cultural identity, and personal integrity of the Sarayaku people. Among the measures ordered are:

1. Pentolite Removal: The State must remove the explosives (pentolite) left in the territory of the Sarayaku people.

2. Appropriate consultations: Implement effective procedures for prior, free and informed consultation for any natural resource extraction project in indigenous territories.

3. Mandatory training: Conduct courses for officials on the rights of indigenous peoples.

4. Public recognition: Organize a public act of recognition of state responsibility.

5. Economic reparation: Payment of USD 90,000 for material damages and USD 1,250,000 for immaterial damages to the Sarayaku people.

Despite the ruling, compliance has been partial, with delays in the implementation of the measures, especially in the removal of pentolite and the effective application of prior consultation mechanisms.

Indigenous peoples and comparable communities represent one of the most important ways to combat the climate crisis that afflicts us, mainly because they are the guardians of the planet's biocultural heritage; their management of agrobiodiversity can contribute to reducing poverty and restoring degraded ecosystems, in addition to representing the sector of the world's population that contributes least to the emission of greenhouse gases.

In this case, the Kichwa communities are key actors in mitigating climate change due to their ancestral relationship with the land and their role in protecting Amazonian ecosystems. Their concept of “Living Forest” (Kawsak Sacha) highlights this spiritual and cultural connection, perceiving the land as a living being (para. 150).

The ruling recognizes the importance of indigenous peoples in the conservation of ecosystems in the face of extractive projects, emphasizing the need to protect their right to prior consultation and their territories. It also refers to international responsibility for the violation of the rights to consultation, indigenous communal property, and cultural identity, as established in Article 21 of the American Convention, in conjunction with Articles 1.1 and 2 thereof, to the detriment of the Kichwa Indigenous People of Sarayaku.

• Mario Melo Cevallos, Center for Justice and International Law (CEJIL)
• Association of the Kichwa People of Sarayaku

• Ecuadorian State

The Kichwa people of Sarayaku are located in the Ecuadorian Amazon, in the province of Pastaza, on the banks of the Bobonaza River. Their population of approximately 1,500 people lives in a territory of 135,000 hectares of tropical rainforest. This territory is rich in biodiversity and natural resources, essential for the subsistence of the communities that depend on hunting, fishing, and traditional agriculture.

• Opinion 23/17 of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights.
• United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples
• Convention 169 concerning Indigenous and Tribal Peoples in Independent Countries, International Labour Organization
• Rio Declaration on Environment and Development
• Constitution of Ecuador