6
[…] order” pending compliance. The State did not respond to these allegations. In that
regard, the Court recalls that State Parties to the Convention that have recognized the
binding jurisdiction of the Court have the duty to comply with the obligations it
establishes. This obligation includes the duty of the State to inform the Court on the
measures adopted to comply with the latter's decisions. The State’s timely observance of
the obligation to indicate how it is complying with each of the Court’s orders is
fundamental for evaluating its compliance with the Judgment as a whole.7
a)
The duty to delimit, demarcate, and grant collective title over the
territory of the members of the Saramaka people; the duty to abstain, until the
first obligation has been fulfilled, from acts which might affect the existence,
value, use, or enjoyment of Saramaka territory without consent; and the duty to
review concessions already granted within traditional Saramaka territory
(Operative Paragraph five of the Judgment)
7.
The Court notes, first of all, that Operative Paragraph five of the Judgment
contains at least three separate obligations: 1) the delimitation, demarcation, and
granting of collective title over Saramaka territory; 2) abstention from acts which might
affect the existence, value, use, or enjoyment of that territory without the Saramaka
people's consent before the delimitation, demarcation, and titling has been carried out;
and 3) the review of concessions already granted within traditional Saramaka territory
with the aim of preserving the survival of the Saramaka people. The Court will first
analyze the State's compliance with its duty to grant collective title to the members of
the Saramaka people; as the State's latter obligations relate to existing or future
concessions or other acts that may affect Saramaka territories, the Court considers it
appropriate to analyze them together.
a.1) The duty to delimit, demarcate, and grant collective title
8.
The State initially reported that it was “pursu[ing] an integral approach [to] the
national issue of the recognition of tribal rights” through the project “Support for the
Sustainable Development of the Interior” (hereinafter, “SSDI”), which had the
“delimitation and demarcation of living areas of tribal communities” as one of its
objectives. According to the State, reports prepared as part of the SSDI project indicated
the existence of overlaps between Saramaka lands and those of other tribal communities,
requiring it to ensure that the process of delimitation and demarcation was conducted in
consultation with all of these.8 However, the State later indicated that on December 15,
2010, the SSDI project was “officially […] stop[ped]” after consultation with the
Association of Saramaka Authorities proved that the project lacked “adequate
stakeholder support.” Instead, an “agreement [wa]s signed between the Ministry of
Regional Development and [N]ational Resources and Environmental Assessment
(Narena) [and] the GIS Department of the Centre for Agricultural Research in Suriname
(CELOS)” in order to “assist the Saramaka people in the delineation and demarcation of
7
Cf. Case of "Five Pensioners” v. Peru. Monitoring Compliance with Judgment. Order of the InterAmerican Court of Human Rights of November 17, 2004, Considering clause five; and Case of the “Las Dos
Erres” Massacre v. Guatemala. Monitoring Compliance with Judgment. Order of the Inter-American Court of
Human Rights of July 06, 2011, Considering clause six.
8
During the private hearing, the State submitted four draft reports developed by the Amazon
Conservation Team, a non-governmental organization, as part of the SSDI project. The reports were entitled:
a) “Land Rights, Tenure and Use of Indigenous Peoples and Maroons in Suriname”; b) “Strategy for the
Sustainable Development of the Moiwana Village”; c) “Participatory Mapping in Lands of Indigenous Peoples and
Maroons in Suriname”; and d) “Support to the Traditional Authority Structure of Indigenous Peoples and
Maroons in Suriname.”