The Right to Free, Prior and Informed Consent to Decisions on Indigenous People(s)' Ancestral Lands and Territories?

Abstract

This paper examines the right to free, prior and informed consent (FPIC) related to decisions affecting indigenous peoples’ ancestral lands and territories in international law. It analyses the legal background of the right to FPIC based on the right to self-determination. Furthermore, this paper shows how this legal background has influenced the latest development of the right to FPIC in international law. Of particular focus is the implementation of the right to FPIC in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and the recent development of a comprehensive jurisprudence related to the right FPIC within Inter-American Human Rights System by the Inter-American Court on Human Rights. Finally, this paper concludes that the right to FPIC has increasingly developed within international law and may become a principle of emerging customary international law.