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.
