Staff Attorney Leo Crippa leads a workshop in Guatemala

Indigenous peoples face many serious human rights and environmental problems due to illegal land expropriation, large infrastructure projects, forced displacement, and the imposition of extractive industry projects. The ongoing development of international human rights law is a critical legal and political tool. These laws which explicitly recognize the collective right of indigenous peoples to own, manage and control their traditional lands and natural resource can help lessen and prevent such problems. To strengthen the ability of indigenous peoples to use international human rights law to protect their culture, lands and environment, the Center has developed a new set of training materials and implemented a comprehensive program of human rights workshops. These workshops are given to indigenous leaders based on requests from indigenous communities and organizations, and communities that are in imminent danger are highly prioritized.

Some of our training materials include:

• ::  A comprehensive handbook that is specifically designed for indigenous leaders. It is most important of our new training materials. It describes the substance of existing and developing human rights instruments, the available human rights mechanisms and processes that can be used to protect indigenous peoples, lands and environment and the relationship of human rights and international law to domestic law and policy.

• ::  A PowerPoint presentation to complement the handbook; provides additional information about how communities facing serious human rights violations can present a petition or case to the Inter American human rights system.

• ::  A PowerPoint presentation explaining the structure and mandate of the Inter-American Development Bank as a means to demonstrate that the IDB should also be held accountable for human rights responsibilities when IDB projects adversely affect indigenous peoples, indigenous lands, and their environments.

Please see the list of workshops and their descriptions below for any further details on a particular workshop.

Selected Workshops

2008: Colombia and Peru

2007:  Paraguay, Colombia, Peru, Nicaragua and Bolivia

2006:  Argentina, Guatemala and Costa Rica

2005: Guatemala, Argentina