International court rules against Guatemala in a landmark Indigenous and environmental rights case

abcnews.go.com:

Guatemala violated Indigenous rights by permitting a huge nickel mine on tribal land almost two decades ago, according to a ruling from the Inter-American Court of Human Rights

MEXICO CITY — Guatemala violated Indigenous rights by permitting a huge nickel mine on tribal land almost two decades ago, according to a ruling from the Inter-American Court of Human Rights Friday.

The landmark verdict marks a monumental step in a four-decade struggle for Indigenous land rights and a long, bitter legal battle, which has at times spilled into the streets of northern Guatemala.

It also comes at the close of the U.N. climate summit COP28, which stressed the importance of renewables and energy transition minerals like nickel more than ever.

According to a verdict read from Costa Rica in the early hours of the morning, the Guatemalan government violated the rights of the Indigenous Q’eqchi’ people to property and consultation by permitting mining on land where members of the community have lived at least since the 1800s.

In its written sentence, the court linked the human rights violations to “inadequacies in domestic law,” which fail to recognize Indigenous property and ordered the state to adopt new laws.

Leonardo Crippa, an attorney with the Indian Law Resource Center who has been researching and representing the community since 2005, said that the finding against the state of Guatemala was a once-in-a-century advance for Indigenous rights in Guatemala and internationally.

“All countries in Latin America are going to look at this decision," Crippa said. “All courts will have to secure that any decision that this made on mining, on Indigenous lands or titling of Indigenous land is done in a way that is consistent with what the