The Paradoxes of Indigenous Rights

Over twenty years ago, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights recognized that international human rights law guarantees indigenous communities property rights to their homelands. Since then, many states in Latin America are obligated to recognize the ’special relationship’ indigenous peoples have to their land and translate this cultural attachment into the national legal system—in the form of the right to property. This ‘cultural’ model is not the only possible form of conceptualizing indigenous rights. In the North American legal tradition, native land rights are not seen as originating in a cultural attachment indigenous people have to their land, but in a legal attachment: sovereignty. What are the consequences to base property rights on ‘indigenous culture’ instead of ‘indigenous sovereignty’? In his presentation, Jonas Bens (Universität Hamburg) unpacks the specific legal construction of indigenous rights in Latin America from an anthropological perspective of normative pluralism and maps out the transformative potential as well as the political limitations of translating indigenous land rights into capitalist property. Moderation: Barbara Göbel (Ibero-Amerikanisches Institut)

Thursday, 21.9.2023, 18.00 h (UTC+02, Berlin)
Ibero-Amerikanisches Institut, Sala de conferencias y vía Webex.

Register here: https://iai-veranstaltungen.einladbar.de/en/appointments/upcoming/details/fac0cb07-d537-4f36-9685-0763e316f093#info