Environmental justice in Colombia: a review of the constitutional jurisprudence protecting indigenous peoples

Abstract

The Colombian State has ratified several international instruments to protect indigenous peoples: the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination of 1965, the Convention on Indigenous and Tribal Peoples of 1989 (ILO Convention 169), the Declaration of the United Nations on the rights of indigenous peoples in 2007. Additionally, there is a constitutional article on multiethnic and multicultural nation, norms and jurisprudence aimed at environmental protection in the context of Colombian indigenous peoples. In this paper, the main thematic nuclei of environmental justice that derive from the constitutional jurisprudence of indigenous peoples are presented, based on an analysis of sentences issued since 1997 by the Colombian constitutional court.