Lights and shadows in the jurisprudence: invoking the spiritual dimension of the land of the Indigenous Peoples

Abstract

The paper "Lights and shadows in the Jurisprudence: invoking the spiritual dimension of the land of the Indigenous Peoples” analyses and tries to highlight the difference between the judgements of the American, European and African regional instances before which the indigenous peoples (PPII) have brought their cases when their rights have been violated, in particular that of the ownership of ancestral lands whose dimension and meaning is not only material but eminently spiritual. In order to reach the conclusion that gives title to this work, the applications and consequent decisions of the regional courts from the 1980s of the last century to the present are studied, although inevitably in the European scenario, those taken locally and by the UN Human Rights Committee are mentioned. This contribution is primarily intended to compare regional courts, so that if a shadow seems to be cast over the cases brought by the Sami before of the European court, a light appears in the African and Inter-American courts. The spiritual element of the land is a constant in the claims and decisions that the PPIIs have filed at these two regional venues, which contrasts with those filed at the European Court of Human Rights. Thus, this contribution seeks to show that not only the decisions pronounced, but also the content or substance of the claims presented, and the way in which they proceed to raise the violation of the right to their lands, differ significantly. To this end, an analytical method is used for both the applications and the results of these, which is completed with the pertinent doctrinal contributions.