On Thursday, March 13, 2025, it was not any day for the indigenous peoples Tagaeri and Taromenane de. With this date, and after such expectation, the sentence issued by the Inter -American Court of Human Rights (IACHR) on September 4, 2024 regarding the case of these peoples that inhabit the Ecuadorian Western Amazon was finally notified. The state of Ecuador had authorized two mining projects in the territory of these two peoples, but the IACHR has declared it guilty for the VioAlcion of the rights to collective property, so it must repair the damages, in addition to investigating and judging those involved.
The Tagaeri and Taromenane are framed in the category of (PIAV), used in recent years from different international organizations. These peoples, due to their unique location and situation, begin to monopolize attention especially in Latin America, both in doctrine, politics, and among the most committed sectors of civil society.
The “isolation” is good in case because it corresponds to its real situation. However, the “voluntary” qualifier can be misleading, given that most of these peoples of the rest of society forced by circumstances, rather than of their own will. Many of its members who face complex scenarios, do not even know that their peoples are called like this, or that they have been recognized as holders of the right to in various international instruments.
Also known as ecostystemic, not contacted, free, hidden and even invisible, they have decided to isolate themselves not only to preserve their culture, identity and worldviews, but to safeguard their own life and survival as peoples. Possessors of knowledge and knowledge that have transcended the time and space, and fierce protectors of nature to which they respect and care, today face a countless challenges and challenges that come from various fronts, placing them in a constant state of frank vulnerability.
The “voluntary” qualifier can be misleading, since most of these peoples have departed from the rest of society forced by circumstances
In a context in which it is the State itself, through actions or omissions, it violates their rights, the reasons are left to decide to exclude themselves from the rest of society. They are subject to constants (drug trafficking),, excessive exploitation of natural resources by extractive companies, conflicts between various peoples or communities with other types of ethnic identification and, as if that were not enough, of the proliferation of megaprojects of internal and external capital in their territories.
Faced with this panorama, they have proven that isoking has not been enough. Therefore, they have decided to explore other ways and strategies for the protection of their traditional cultures and ways of life. One of these measures is to go to jurisdictional instances. As expected, the road is not easy for these peoples. In fact, they have encountered little sensitive or prepared national judicial systems in the field of the rights of indigenous peoples who have not granted them protection, so they have not remained a choice but to resort to regional courts in search of the long -awaited justice that in their own states have not found.
In this case were the indigenous peoples Tagaeri and Taromenane, who, given the alleged responsibility of Ecuador, went to the Inter -American Commission on Human Rights, which submitted the case to the Inter -American Court of Human Rights in 2020 for the authorization of two mining exploitation projects in their territories, allegedly protected by the State. That is, although they are located in the intangible area Tagaeri Taromenane (Zitt), thus called Executive Decree 552 of 1999, which indicates that it is “forbidden to perpetuity all kinds of extractive activity, by virtue of constitut Ecuadorian courts, such a measure does not constitute a property title that legally protects those territories.
But things do not stay there, Ecuadorian legislation at the highest level is contradictory regarding the protection of these peoples. On the one hand, the Constitution of Ecuador, which from a comparative perspective is one of the most advanced in the recognition of the rights to indigenous peoples, provides in its article 57 that, “the territories of the peoples in voluntary isolation are of irreducible and intangible ancestral possession, and in them all types of extractive activity will be vented.” But on the other, in article 407 of the same constitutional text, in general, it indicates the possibility that “exceptionally” resources can be exploited in protected and declared areas declared as intangible, at the request of the Presidency of the Republic and prior declaration of national interest by the National Assembly.
That is, despite the protections established by the Constitution, the fate of these peoples is subject to what the Legislative Power agrees on matters of national interest and ultimately, the president in turn considers convenient. But beyond Ecuadorian normative, the truth is that, at international and regional level, the rights of indigenous peoples, including that in voluntary isolation, are protected by different legal instruments. Among others, by the International Labor Organization of 1989 (Treaty of International Reference Law in the field and of which Ecuador is part), the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples of 2007 and the American Declaration on the Rights of the Indigenous Peoples of 2016, adopted within the framework of the Organization of American States.
In addition, the Inter -American Court of Human Rights and even the African Court of Human Rights and Peoples (the latter in a more recent way) already have jurisprudence in the matter that has come to reinforce, in a broad way, the International Statute for the Protection of Indigenous Peoples.
On the final decision of the CDIH depended on the effective protection of the rights of these peoples not only in Ecuador, but in other Latin American countries for the influence, prestige, indirect projection and recognition that the sentences are having
Thus, and after a long walk that was not exempt from misfortunes, because in 2003, in 2006 and in 2013 a series of violent deaths occurred due to the lack of action by the Ecuadorian State to protect the members of these peoples, the long -awaited day arrived. 26 days for five years since the matter submitted to the Inter -American Court of Human Rights, back on September 30, 2020, sentence was issued. However, they had to wait another 170 days to make them known the ruling.
With all this, it was worth the wait as the colloquial expression says, since the CDIH in a fact that will undoubtedly sit in the region regarding the protection of the rights of indigenous peoples in voluntary isolation, condemned the Ecuadorian state.
With five votes in favor and two against, the CDIH determined that the state of Ecuador is responsible for the violation of collective property rights, self -determination, to decent life, health, food, housing, to the healthy environment, culture, to the protection of the family and dignity, among others.
The expected resolution of the CDIH in the constituted a true challenge, not only for the court itself, but for a state that currently goes through a series of political uncertainty, economic crisis, energy instability and an accelerated growth of insecurity at all levels at this juncture, the survival of the Tagaeri and Taromenane peoples, or, the risk even of disappearing, were in the hands of the CDIH. On its final decision, the effective protection of the rights of these peoples depended not only in Ecuador, but in other Latin American countries for the influence, prestige, indirect projection and recognition that the court sentences are having.
The Ecuadorian State must, thanks to this resolution that will transcend borders, not only criminally judge those responsible for the deaths of 2003, 2006 and 2014, but also, take the necessary legislative, administrative, administrative or judicial measures regarding decision -making, protection protocols, granting or renewal of licenses to companies, monitoring and protection of the area of intangibility area tagaeri tagaeri taromena materials and immaterials and effective access to justice to the Piav, among others. Finally, the payment of certain amounts for expenses and costs was agreed, since compensatory compensation does not apply. From the notification of the sentence, Ecuador has a year to comply with what is indicated in it. Made the above, the CDIH, once it supervises the full fulfillment of the failure, will terminate the case.
To date, from the judgment of the case In 2001, the CDIH has been characterized by interpreting and applying the rights of these peoples in a broad, progressive manner of collective rights in a framework in which law and interculturality are intertwined to give way to a delivery of justice attached to Latin American reality. Therefore, and being currently the last judicial route to enforce those rights, the expectation was even greater, because in states such as Brazil, Colombia, Bolivia, Peru, Venezuela and Paraguay, there are indigenous peoples in voluntary isolation that live a similar situation. Hence the importance of this judgment, which means a light at the end of the tunnel for indigenous peoples in a region so full of cultural contrasts.
