The vital need to engage in concerted action now to implement the indigenous right of free, prior and informed consent.

Servindi, 26 May, 2015.- "It is an unpostponable, historic necessity to convene concerted activities to promote the implementation of the right to free, prior and informed consent", asserts  Mónica Yriart, an attorney who specializes in constitutional law, human rights and the rights of indigenous peoples.

This is a right that is critical to the realization of all indigenous rights connected to the preservation and control of their territories.

In a legal argument regarding this right, she asserts that national political powers have no intention of conceding the right of consent to indigenous peoples, and that it is now essential to trace a carefully planned, and well timed strategy, from the first step to the last, and to “accept no failure.”

According to her view, the legal right to free, prior and informed consent “does not have a legally ensured future,” and it is critical to take advantage of this legal, and temporal moment, in order to undertake an historic challenge of national and international dimensions.

The full article "The right of Indigenous Peoples to Free, Prior and Informed Consent: The need for concerted action. The peruvian case, and principles with broad application in the Americas” can be acceced following this link [PDF, 25 páginas, 400 KB]

Mónica Yriart is an Attorney, specialist in Constitutional Law in the Americas, International Human Rights, the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Juris Doctor, George Washington University School of Law, Washington D.C.; Bachelor of Arts, Anthropology, Swarthmore College, Swarthmore, P.A., U.S.A.

All translations from Spanish to English are by the author.