An international court published its ruling this month that the Ecuadorian government was responsible for a long list of human rights violations against uncontacted Indigenous communities in the Amazon Rainforest. It’s the first case of its kind examining protections for people who live outside of regular contact with the rest of the world.

The Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR) ruled that the government violated numerous rights of the Tagaeri and Taromenane Indigenous peoples and failed to prevent violent attacks against them. The historic decision should improve safeguards for people living in voluntary isolation in Ecuador and beyond, activists said.

“This ruling is very important,” Pedro Bermeo, a spokesperson for YASunidos, an anti-extractives group and co-petitioner in the case, told Mongabay. “It marks a ‘before and after’ in the lives of uncontacted peoples — not only in Ecuador, not even just in Latin America, but in the world.”

The office of the president and the Ministry of the Environment, Water and Ecological Transition didn’t respond to a request for comment.

The nomadic Tagaeri and Taromenane rely on hunting and gathering in the Amazon Rainforest of eastern Ecuador, but the area has also been an attractive location for oil development. Several of the country’s largest oil fields, including Blocks 31 and 43, are located on Indigenous peoples’ ancestral land.

In 1999, the government banned extractive activities on some ancestral land through the creation of the approximately 7,000-square-kilometer (2,700-square-mile) Tagaeri Taromenane Intangible Zone (ZITT). In 2007, it added a 10-km2 (4-mi2) buffer zone to strengthen the protections. Part of the area overlaps with Yasuní National Park.

At the same time, the government was trying to expand oil drilling in Block 43, known as the Ishpingo-Tambococha-Tiputini (ITT) field. The project was stopped last year by a national referendum, which required the block’s oil to stay in the ground indefinitely. But officials continued to look for ways to delayimplementing the referendum results and continue to drill.

The area’s rich abundance of natural resources also attractedillegal logging, which led to numerous clashes with the uncontacted communities as they tried to defend their territory. The U.N. said logging was one of the main activities putting uncontacted communities “in danger of extinction.”

There were also violent clashes with nearby Waorani, a culturally and linguistically similar Indigenous group. In 2013, two Tagaeri sisters around the ages of 2 and 6 were kidnapped and held by Waorani families in retaliation for previous attacks against Waorani communities, the reasons for which are disputed. The sisters were separated and taken to live in different parts of the communities, where one of them would eventually become pregnant, according to the ruling.

“[The government] doesn’t just violate the constitution and the law, but also disregards popular mandates,” Bermeo said. “That’s why we had to take this case to the highest authority, the Inter-American Court, to establish international accountability.”

During the IACHR trial in August 2022, the government cited the financial investments it had made in forest conservation and reforestation efforts, and argued that conflicts with the Waorani were outside of the state’s control, having nothing to do with oil extraction. However, it did take partial responsibility for a Waorani attack in 2003 and an attack in 2006 whose aggressors are still unknown. The state admitted that more thorough investigations should have been carried out.

The court ruled that the state was responsible for the violation of the two kidnapped girls’ rights to personal integrity, personal freedom, honor, dignity, and the protection of family, children, identity and movement.

It said the government’s response to the kidnappings lacked an “intercultural approach” that could have limited the girls’ suffering and prevented retaliation from the Waorani.

“The state took measures to guarantee their safety and health. It was also established that the State allowed the girls to be separated and, initially, placed in the care of the same attackers who had facilitated their forced contact,” a court statement said.

The government failed to provide “acceptable” health care during the girl’s pregnancy and failed to take her requests into account when treating and examining her.

The court also said that while the ZITT can be an effective safeguard, the government failed to protect it from external threats, ultimately resulting in violations of Indigenous rights to life, health, food, cultural identity, a healthy environment and housing.

The court’s ruling was handed down in September 2024 but wasn’t released until this month. It includes financial reparations for victims as well as improved regulations to protect against future violence against uncontacted communities.

The ZITT must be expanded in accordance with the nomadic lifestyle of the Tagaeri and Taromenane, and the government has to strengthen prevention measures against oil drilling, logging and other extractive activities. This includes a monitoring system that can detect the presence of threats on ancestral land.

The government also has to train officials about respecting the rights of uncontacted communities.

“Respect for the principle of non-contact as a manifestation of the right of [uncontacted communities] to self-determination doesn’t mean abandoning this population to its fate,” the court said in its ruling.

Existing protections for Indigenous communities living in voluntary isolation remain unclear and insufficiently effective, the court said. The principle of noncontact and respect for a peoples’ choice to remain in isolation has to be fundamental in guiding the actions of the government.

The Ecuadorian government has funded a new commission that will implement these new measures and periodically submit reports to the IACHR.

“This is an express recognition of the importance of [uncontacted peoples’] survival in the world,” Bermeo said, “and thus a world in which these people have a place despite having no contact with the West.”

Banner image: The IACHR during the trial in August 2022. Photo courtesy of IACHR/Flickr. 

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