GUIDELINES FOR IMPLEMENTING THE RIGHT OF INDIGENOUS PEOPLES TO FREE, PRIOR AND INFORMED CONSENT
• Conduct, prior to the approval of any project, “a prior environmental and social
impact assessment”, carried out by “independent and technically capable
entities” and directly by a responsible State body, as a guarantor of rights.60
• The clear identification of the Indigenous People or peoples affected and their
natural territory;
• Respect for the culture and cultural identity of the Indigenous Peoples;
• The participation of the Indigenous Peoples in all stages of the consultation;
• The identification of the peoples or communities possibly affected;
• Respect for traditional and customary representative authorities;
• Credible and independent grievance mechanisms need to be established with
indigenous participation for the oversight of FPIC processes and for on-going
monitoring of agreements reached.
• Respect for the forms of notification and dialogue of the Indigenous Peoples;
• Recognition that, in processes of consultation, Indigenous Peoples must be
allowed to set their own conditions and requirements, demand that the project
be adjusted to their concept of development and propose other alternatives for
development;
• Respect their ways of generating consensus, their ways of developing arguments
and the importance of symbols and images through which they demonstrate
their positions;
• Respect the times and rhythms that mark their decision-making processes;
• Obtain free, prior and informed consent according to their customs and traditions
(in their own languages, according to their oral traditions, in their own time,
etc.);
• Recognition of declarations of international law on the need to consult Indigenous
Peoples on the projects that affect the use, administration and conservation of
the resources in their lands or territories;
• The imperativeness of the principal of good faith during the processes.61
• The recognition that the right to give or withhold FPIC is an exercise of the
right to self-determination and not an obligation to be imposed on Indigenous
Peoples.
• Where consent is obtained in a manner which is not free, prior and informed
it should be considered vitiated.
60 Saramaka People v. Suriname, para. 134.
61 Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in Mexico, 2012. (in Spanish)
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