Indigenous water ontologies
Plurilegal encounters
Interlegal translation

A dying river in Alta Verapaz, Guatemala

By Rachel Sieder and Lieselotte Viaene
In June 2019 a video circulating on Facebook showing the disappearance of the San Simon river in Chisec, Guatemala, known for its tourist attractions, provoked an avalanche of reactions of dismay. According to public opinion, the death of the river was because it had been diverted by one of the many extractive projects operating in the territory of Alta Verapaz. ...

12 June, 2020

Rights of nature: where to start researching?

Blog Series “Nature and Its Rights” – Young researcher´s seminar April 2020

By Carolina Angel Botero (Guest Author)
Since the Colombian Constitutional Court issued judgment T-622 of 2016, in which it recognized the Atrato River as a subject of rights......

29 June, 2020

Speech Circle: The reparation of the Territory and Nature as victim (full version only available in spanish)

Speech Circle: The reparation of the Territory and Nature as victim

Por RIVERS ERC Project
To close the week of commemoration of the International Day of the World's Indigenous People, the Integral System of Truth, Justice, Reparation and Non-Repetition, the Ethnic-Racial Commission of the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP) and the ERC RIVERS Project (UC3M) organized a debate on August 14, 2020 entitled: Harmony of Mother Earth: Reparation of the Territory and Nature as Victim. Judge Belkis Izquierdo of Colombia moderated the speech circle, which had as participants the indigenous lawyers Jovita Tzul Tzul (Guatemala) and Cecilia Baltazar (Ecuador), as well as the leader Maurício Ye'kwana (Brazil) and Lieselotte Viaene (UC3M). During the session, the participants shared their knowledge and experiences regarding: 1) the importance of Territory and Nature for their peoples; 2) the dynamics of violence and the main damages they face, and 3) their recommendations to materialize the reparation of Territories and Nature......

29 September, 2020

The protection of lands and territories of indigenous peoples through human rights: the controversy raised in the case of Lhaka Honhat (nuestra tierra) v. Argentina.

Blog Series “Nature and Its Rights” – Young researcher´s seminar April 2020

By Digno José Montalván Zambrano (Guest Author)
In February this year, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights set a new and controversial precedent about the protection of the right to land and territories of indigenous peoples......

09 July, 2020

The RIVERS project and human rights beyond the human: a genealogy

Blog Series “Nature and Its Rights” – Young researcher´s seminar April 2020

By Lieselotte Viaene, RIVERS principal investigator
“The Tzuultaq'a is God because yoyo, it lives," an old Q'eqchi' woman in Guatemala told me. It was 2002 and I was a Belgian student of anthropology who thought she was being told about a belief, one more myth among the many held by Mesoamerican indigenous peoples......

24 July, 2020

Three years of river rights: Collective Agency for Community Ontologies on Water

Blog Series “Nature and Its Rights”: Young researcher´s seminar April 2020

By María Ximena González Serrano (Invited Author)
It´s been three years, as of May 2020, since the publication of the decision that recognized the rights of the Atrato river... ...

19 June, 2020