Executive Summary
This document consists of a series of guidelines aimed at promoting the right of
Indigenous Peoples to be consulted and to give or withhold free, prior and informed
consent.
It consists of five sections. The first section, an introduction, outlines the objectives
of the document, as well as the basic definitions on which it is premised: Indigenous
Peoples, consultation and consent, and collective ownership of indigenous territories.
The second section analyses the legal grounds of the right to consultation and free,
prior and informed consent. The third section establishes the fundamental elements
of consultation, based on some guiding questions: under what circumstances is it
necessary to consult Indigenous Peoples?; in what cases is their consent required?;
who are the subjects to be consulted?; who is the entity consulting? The fourth
section also offers a reflection on the requirements of consent: that it be free, prior,
informed and obtained in good faith. Finally, the fifth section presents the phases
or stages of the consultation process.
These guidelines are based on the view that the legal foundation of a State's duty
to carry out a consultation in order to obtain the consent of Indigenous Peoples on
decisions affecting them ultimately lies in the right of peoples to self-determination,
which is established in the corpus juris of International Human Rights Law.
Therefore, consultations carried out with Indigenous Peoples must be effective in
the sense that their results should influence decisions of the state that are the subject
of scrutiny.
In order to elaborate these guidelines the principal standards pertaining to consultation
and free, prior and informed consent were considered. These standards have been