Victoria Tauli-Corpuz
Victoria Tauli-Corpuz
Victoria Tauli-Corpuz
Victoria Tauli-Corpuz
Victoria Tauli-Corpuz is the UN Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, a position she has held since 2014. An indigenous leader hailing from the Kankanaey Igorot community in the Philippines’ Cordillera region, she has been fighting for the rights of Indigenous Peoples and rural women since the 1970s, when she helped build an indigenous movement that successfully stopped major dam and logging projects in the Cordillera region.
Since then, Tauli-Corpuz has founded and managed several civil society organizations dedicated to the advancement of indigenous and women’s rights, including the Tebtebba Foundation, of which she serves as founder and executive director. In addition to her duties as UN Special Rapporteur, Tauli-Corpuz also serves as an expert for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, an adviser for the Third World Network, and a member of the United Nations Development Programme Civil Society Organizations Advisory Committee.
In March 2018, Tauli-Corpuz was placed on a list of “terrorists” by the Philippine government, alongside hundreds of other indigenous and human rights defenders, as retaliation for speaking up against the Duterte administration’s human rights violations. She remains in exile from her native Philippines, and continues to fight for Indigenous Peoples, local communities, and women around the world.
Victoria Tauli-Corpuz is the UN Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, a position she has held since 2014. An indigenous leader hailing from the Kankanaey Igorot community in the Philippines’ Cordillera region, she has been fighting for the rights of Indigenous Peoples and rural women since the 1970s, when she helped build an indigenous movement that successfully stopped major dam and logging projects in the Cordillera region.
Since then, Tauli-Corpuz has founded and managed several civil society organizations dedicated to the advancement of indigenous and women’s rights, including the Tebtebba Foundation, of which she serves as founder and executive director. In addition to her duties as UN Special Rapporteur, Tauli-Corpuz also serves as an expert for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, an adviser for the Third World Network, and a member of the United Nations Development Programme Civil Society Organizations Advisory Committee.
In March 2018, Tauli-Corpuz was placed on a list of “terrorists” by the Philippine government, alongside hundreds of other indigenous and human rights defenders, as retaliation for speaking up against the Duterte administration’s human rights violations. She remains in exile from her native Philippines, and continues to fight for Indigenous Peoples, local communities, and women around the world.
The Problem of Overlap: The Panamanian government stalls on indigenous land titling on protected areas
by Christine Halvorson
Rainforest Foundation US
The Problem of Overlap: The Panamanian government stalls on indigenous land titling on protected areas
by Christine Halvorson
Rainforest Foundation US
The Problem of Overlap: The Panamanian government stalls on indigenous land titling on protected areas
by Christine Halvorson
Rainforest Foundation US
The Problem of Overlap: The Panamanian government stalls on indigenous land titling on protected areas
by Christine Halvorson
Rainforest Foundation US
The Problem of Overlap: The Panamanian government stalls on indigenous land titling on protected areas
by Christine Halvorson
Rainforest Foundation US
Organization: Centro de Derechos Humanos de la Montaña
Community: Tlapa de Comonfort
Spokesperson Name: Abel Barrera
Organization: ONG Derechos Humanos y Medio Ambiente
Spokesperson Name: : Jose Bayardo Chata Pacoricona (10:50-18:16)
Liberia
Cases of Documented Violations
Numerous reports of land rights and environmental defenders being attacked, tortured, and unjustly imprisoned have emerged from Liberia. Community members protesting the acquisition of their lands have been directly attacked by armed forces or private guards employed by companies seeking to acquire their lands, as well as unjustly accused of crimes and imprisoned without evidence. According to advocates, the cycle of criminalization and violence is designed to quash protests to development projects planned on community lands without their consent. Even lawyers and advocates supporting community rights have faced violence and legal charges. Alfred Brownell, founder of Green Advocates International, and several Green Advocates staff members faced repeated harassment from police. After numerous charges were levied against Brownell and Green Advocates’ staff—charges that civil society maintain were politically motivated and designed to discredit protest against illegal land acquisition—Brownell went into hiding and eventually fled the country. He and his family are in exile in the US.
Much of the violence against Indigenous Peoples and local communities occurs because companies seek to use their lands for oil palm plantations. A complaint brought to the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) Complaints Panel resulted in the panel finding the palm oil producer Golden Veroleum Liberia (GVL) to have been non-compliant. The panel ordered GVL to address a number of issues raised by affected communities, including allegations of human rights abuses and violations of affected communities’ rights to free, prior, and informed consent. After the decision, GVL withdrew from the RSPO, alleging that they needed time to improve their performance on sustainability. However civil society groups have cast doubt on that claim, arguing instead that the withdrawal represents an attempt by GVL to avoid accounting for alleged human rights abuses and to preclude the need to work with communities to redress alleged illegal land acquisitions.
Although the country has legislation on the table that would recognize the rights of its Indigenous Peoples and local communities in the form of the Land Rights Act, the Act has remained stalled in Congress for years.