Periodic Reporting for period 1 - GROUNDHR (Challenges of Grounding Universal Human Rights. Indigenous epistemologies of human rightsand intercultural dialogue in consultation processes on natural resource exploitation)
Reporting period: 2016-09-01 to 2018-08-31
GROUNDHR investigated how the construction of intercultural dialogue can be advanced as a means of grounding universal human rights in different contexts of cultural diversity. Despite the theoretical consensus, after decades of debate, that universal human rights do not require uniformity, the integration of cultural diversity in human rights’ norms and practice remains hard to realize. This research sees the ‘intercultural interpretation of human rights’ as a way to anchor universal human rights’ norms in a dialogue with what de Sousa Santos, GROUNDHR´s supervisor, calls ‘Epistemologies of the South’. These locally-grounded views are rooted in other forms of knowledge belonging to those groups systematically excluded and silenced by colonialism and capitalism. However, a huge knowledge gap concerning these other human rights views exits. Therefore, from a methodological point of view, this project demonstrates the richness of a bottom-up, empirically grounded research by focusing on the human rights of indigenous peoples in Latin America. GROUNDHR’ design is grounded in a legal anthropological comparative, Guatemala and Colombia, approach applying methodological triangulation in order to grasp the (inter)national and local legal perceptions. It examines the challenges of grounding indigenous epistemologies of the human right to water and the construction of intercultural dialogue through the prism of consultation processes on hydroelectric dams. In Latin America, the implementation gap regarding this right to prior consultation about large-scale development projects in indigenous territories stands high on the political agenda. On the applied level, GROUNDHR would build strong practice-based evidence about these consultation processes, providing a richer understanding of the overall research question.
GROUNDHR case study research question (Guatemala and Colombia) was: what are the challenges of advancing intercultural dialogue between States and indigenous peoples that aims to reach indigenous consent for the implementation of large-scale hydroelectric dams? Between the submission of GROUNDHR (September 2015), its actual start in September 2016 as well as during its implementation, important political and legal developments took place in both case study countries, which had to be taken into account during the projects implementation. First in Colombia, in August 2016, peace was signed between the Government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia – People’s Army (FARC-EP) which should put to an end the longest armed conflict in the Latin American region. Even though GROUNDHR focusses on indigenous communities affected extractive development projects, it is important to highlight that most of these communities have been severely affected by the internal armed conflict. Further, many indigenous communities are currently refusing to collaborate with consultation processes because their rights are not sufficient guaranteed. The Constitutional Court published in May 2017 an international ground breaking ruling in which it granted legal personhood to the Atrato River and its watersheds, thus adopting an unprecedented ecocentric approach. Further the ruling creates innovative jurisprudence regarding the ‘new’ human rights to water – just as GROUNDHR had stated - stating that this right also refers to the hydric sources. While in Guatemala, the Constitutional Court requested the legislative branch, in a controversial ruling of May 2017, to elaborate a Law on the Right of Prior, Free and Informed Consultation of Indigenous Peoples within the year. At the same time, the country sunk further away into a political and constitutional crisis leading to socio-political instability because of huge government corruption scandals and the conflict between the president and a UN-backed anti-corruption investigative body (CICIG). Moreover, international human right organizations as well as the UN, for example the Special Rapporteur of the rights of indigenous peoples, have denounced the fast increase of killings of indigenous leaders and environmental defenders in the Latin American region and the fact that the criminalization of indigenous leaders who protest against extractive projects has become a widespread tactic of Latin American governments. Recent research revealed that 566 social leaders and human rights defenders, the majority indigenous afro-descendent authorities, have been killed in Colombia between the 1 of January 2016 and 10 of January 2019.
During the project, three periods of field research was conducted in Colombia: an explorative research stay to gain access to a case study, a longer stay during which contacts and preliminary research was conducted with indigenous communities of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta who are threatened by the Los Besotes Dam and a final stay regarding the impact of mining at the Sierra Nevada. In Guatemala, the research was focused on the Xalalá dam project in Maya Q’eqchi’ territory. This research build further on previous conducted international consultancy legal anthropological research on the impact of this dam on the human rights of the threatened communities. During GROUNDHR one research stay took place during which interviews, workshops and seminars were organized with indigenous elders and authorities (man and women). However, the consolidation of the empirical research data was not achieved during this project.
During the project, three periods of field research was conducted in Colombia: an explorative research stay to gain access to a case study, a longer stay during which contacts and preliminary research was conducted with indigenous communities of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta who are threatened by the Los Besotes Dam and a final stay regarding the impact of mining at the Sierra Nevada. In Guatemala, the research was focused on the Xalalá dam project in Maya Q’eqchi’ territory. This research build further on previous conducted international consultancy legal anthropological research on the impact of this dam on the human rights of the threatened communities. During GROUNDHR one research stay took place during which interviews, workshops and seminars were organized with indigenous elders and authorities (man and women). However, the consolidation of the empirical research data was not achieved during this project.
"As an important academic strategy to contribute to the international state of the art and the new international academic debates regarding the emerging human right to water, a Special Issue was co-edited with a Colombian anthropology colleague, Denisse Roca Servat, (Grupo Territorio de la Escuela de Ciencias Sociales de la Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana, Medellín, Colombia) on “Water and other knowledges: Water and other knowledges: making the plurilegality of the right to water visible"" for the Scopus indexed (Q2), open access and tri-lingual anthropology journal Antípoda - Revista de Antropología y Arquelogía of the University los Andes, Colombia. The Special Issue was published on January 2019 as Number 34: https://revistas.uniandes.edu.co/toc/antipoda/current It includes four academic articles (three in Spanish and one in English) with case studies from Peru, Bolivia, Colombia and Mexico. It also included a photographic essay on indigenous peoples and water in Colombia.
Several non-scientific contributions were published: 1)A blog (2017) ""Ríos: seres vivientes y personalidad jurídica. Nuevos argumentos legales en la defensa de los territorios de los pueblos indígenas"", regarding the ground breaking legal developments that grants rights to rivers at Plaza Publica, a recognized Guatemalan independent research and journalism blog, which was wildly re-published among other blogs and platforms in Latin America.
2) A discussion note, co-written with a Colombian Indigenous Judge of the recently created Chamber for the Recognition of Truth, Responsibility and the Determination of Facts and Conduct of the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP), about indigenous visions and practices regarding post-conflict processes and the connection with extractive industries L. Viaene and B. Izquierdo (2018), Decolonizing transitional justice from indigenous territories, Peace in Progress, N 34, Instituto Catalán Internacional para la Paz (ICIP) (also published in Spanish)
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Several non-scientific contributions were published: 1)A blog (2017) ""Ríos: seres vivientes y personalidad jurídica. Nuevos argumentos legales en la defensa de los territorios de los pueblos indígenas"", regarding the ground breaking legal developments that grants rights to rivers at Plaza Publica, a recognized Guatemalan independent research and journalism blog, which was wildly re-published among other blogs and platforms in Latin America.
2) A discussion note, co-written with a Colombian Indigenous Judge of the recently created Chamber for the Recognition of Truth, Responsibility and the Determination of Facts and Conduct of the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP), about indigenous visions and practices regarding post-conflict processes and the connection with extractive industries L. Viaene and B. Izquierdo (2018), Decolonizing transitional justice from indigenous territories, Peace in Progress, N 34, Instituto Catalán Internacional para la Paz (ICIP) (also published in Spanish)
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