Obstacles on the road to ancestral land : The long-lasting lack of compliance with the Judgments of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights involving indigenous land rights: causes and consequences

It becomes increasingly clear that not the recognition but the implementation of indigenous people’s rights to land and natural resources constitutes the real challenge for international law. This chapter aims to explore the post-judgment phase of the Courts’ indigenous peoples’ land rights judgments and, in particular, the obstacles hampering the full implementation of those judgments. The protracted, but finalized implementation process following the Awas Tingni decision will be taken as a point of departure for a further study of the impediments hindering the implementation of subsequent indigenous peoples’ land rights judgments.