Participation on the Edge: Prior Consultation and Extractivism in Latin America

Abstract

Violent conflicts between indigenous groups, multinational companies, and governments over the control of lands potentially containing valuable minerals and hydrocarbons are proliferating in Latin America, as well as elsewhere around the world too. In 1989 the International Labor Organization (ILO) approved ILO Convention 169, which mandates the implementation of prior consultation (PC) with indigenous peoples about any project that could potentially affect their territory. Many interpretations regarding the aims and scopes of PC exist. Some environmental sectors see PC as a mechanism to prevent the implementation of ecologically unsustainable projects in indigenous territories. Part of the indigenous rights sector, however, sees PC as a platform via which to negotiate financial resources for indigenous communities. On the side of governments and multinational companies, PC represents a means to diminish violence and advance projects under more stable political conditions. By examining mining and hydrocarbon projects in Bolivia, Peru, and Mexico, the authors compare cases in which PC takes place and ones where it is not applied. A typology of the outcomes in relation to 1) the prevention of industrialized resource extraction on indigenous lands, 2) redistribution of economic benefits produced by extractive projects, and 3) diminishment of the state repression associated with extractive projects is offered. Findings show that in many cases all three of these results are not simultaneously achieved; the authors explain why some outcomes might be obtained in certain instances and not in others. Finally, the article offers an overall assessment of PC results in light of participation theories. published by Routledge in 2018. She is currently part of the research team in the three-year project "Conversing with Goliath: Mobilization, participation and repression around neo-extractionist conflicts," funded by the British Academy and the Newton Fund. This project is aimed at examining the effects that new participatory institutions in Mexico such as PC have on socioenvironmental conflicts over mining, hydrocarbons, and renewable energy projects.

FPIC, international law, social space, and indigenous territories in FPIC during extractive projects in Latin America. A romantic or tragic story?

“…FPIC has been deployed only in the third and the fourth type of conflict, oscillating between a checklist (as in the case of demobilized communities) and a negotiation process (as in communities which achieve pecuniary benefits). According to Zaremberg & Wong, (2018) FPIC has never implied a right to veto in the analysed cases, not even in the Bolivian case where national norms formally allow it. On the contrary, communities that achieve the halt of a project never used FPIC.…”

“…In this regard, it is interesting to analyse the findings of Torres-Wong, 2018 and Zaremberg & Wong, 2018 in Latin America, who have made an evaluation of the FPIC processes registered until 2017 2 , making a typology of scenarios and action patterns of indigenous communities. This sheds light to understand, in a more complex way, the position of indigenous communities in the social space.…”

Understanding Difference to Build Bridges among Stakeholders: Perceptions of Participation in Four Multi-stakeholder Forums in the Peruvian Amazon

“…This optimism is also reflected in policy and practice as donors and practitioners emphasise the importance of stakeholder participation in decision-making processes related to land use and land-use change. Local populations, especially indigenous organisations, also demand this access to participation (Zaremberg & Torres, 2018).…”

Foreign aid, the mining sector and democratic ownership: The case of Canadian assistance to Peru

“…Since they often do not know of planned projects in advance, by the time they hear about them the projects may have already been approved, in which case consultations are no longer possible. Moreover, even when consultations of indigenous peoples do take place, they have never—as of the end of 2017—been permitted to prevent extractive projects from proceeding (Zaremberg & Torres Wong, 2018, pp. 42, 44).…”