Rights of Indigenous Peoples under the Light of Energy Exploitation

Abstract

This article discusses how energy exploitation impacts on indigenous peoples’ rights. The article argues that the current focus in the international arena and the literature on indigenous rights of participation and consultation and the special attention that the free, prior and informed consent attracts may minimise the importance that States and companies pay to the other rights that indigenous peoples have in these circumstances. After analysing the current standards relating to participation and consultation and looking closely to the free, prior and informed consent, the article uses international human rights law, and especially ILO Convention No. 169 and the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, as well as jurisprudence coming from the Inter-American and the African system of human rights as well as the interpretation of United Nations bodies, in order to identify the specific other obligations that States have vis-à-vis indigenous peoples when they initiate or permit energy projects on or near the lands they live on.