Inter-American Court Judgment Implemented in Nicaragua

The Nicaraguan Government has given the indigenous Awas Tingni community the title to its traditional ancestral territory.  The Nicaraguan Government gave the Awas Tingni title to approximately 74,000 hectares of densely forested lands.  The move followed the historic decision by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights on August 31, 2001 in the case of the Mayagna (Suma) Awas Tingni Community v. Nicaragua, where the Court found that Nicaragua had violated the rights of the Awas Tigni community by granting logging concessions within its traditional lands. The Court found that the right to property protects the traditional land tenure of indigenous peoples.  Click here to read more about the Court decision in an article by S. James Anaya of the University of Arizona and Dean Claudio Grossman of the American University College of Law.  (FYI, the article is about the court decision, not the return of land this month).

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(mew)