establishes that “[t]he granting of mining concessions may not impair the guarantee of private property and municipal property established in the Constitution and developed in the Civil Code and the international treaties on the rights of indigenous and Afrodescendant peoples; particularly [ILO] Convention No. 169 and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.” 243 221. However, article 82 of the Regulations to the General Mining Act provides that “[p]rior to any decision to grant an exploitation concession, the mining authority shall ask the relevant municipal council and the population to conduct a consultation within sixty (60) calendar days at the latest. The decision adopted by the consultation is binding for the granting of the exploitation concession. Citizens domiciled in the municipality or municipalities consulted may take part in the consultation if they are registered as such on the electoral roll for the last general election. If the consultation of the citizens results in opposition to the exploitation, three (3) years must pass before another consultation can be held.” 244 222. Based on the foregoing, the Court notes that although the laws of Honduras recognize that indigenous and Afro-Honduran peoples have the right to be consulted and relates this to the international standards, the regulatory provisions for mining indicate that consultation will be carried out during the stage immediately preceding authorization of mining exploitation. Accordingly, this regulation fails to specify the standards analyzed for the right to consultation, particularly those indicated in the Case of the Saramaka People v. Suriname and the Case of the Kichwa Indigenous People of Sarayaku v. Ecuador, according to which consultation must take place during the first stages of the project; that is, prior to the authorization of prospection or exploration programs with the exceptions mentioned previously (supra, para. 218). Furthermore, the Court has indicated that in addition to constituting a treaty-based obligation, consultation is also a general principle of international law 245 with which States must comply, regardless of whether it is expressly regulated in their legislation. Consequently, States are required to have adequate and effective mechanisms to guarantee the consultation process in such cases, whether or not it is stipulated by law. 223. In this regard, already in the Case of the Kichwa Indigenous People of Sarayaku v. Ecuador, 246 the Court noted that several Member States of the Organization of American States, including Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Nicaragua, Paraguay, Peru and Venezuela, had incorporated these standards into their domestic laws, and other countries through their highest courts, including: Argentina, Belize, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Guatemala, Mexico, Peru and directly or indirectly affect the members of an ethnic community shall be subject to socialization and consultation” (evidence file, folio 2552). Finally, article 268 establishes: “For the native indigenous or AfroHonduran people to grant any type of contract, the third party shall present a development project to the highest legitimate authority that represents the ethnic group with the necessary information on the nature, purpose and scope of the activities, as well as the benefits that the peoples and communities involved would receive, and the potential environmental, social, cultural and any other kind of harm and the conditions for its reparation, so that this may be evaluated and analyzed by the respective people or community prior to its subsequent ratification by the Property Institute at the request of the highest authority” (evidence file folio 2552). 243 Section 50 of the General Mining Act of Honduras (merits file, folio 1017). 244 Article 82 of the Regulations to the General Mining Act of Honduras (merits file, folio 1004). 245 Cf. Case of the Kichwa Indigenous People of Sarayaku, supra, para. 164. 246 Cf. Case of the Kichwa Indigenous People of Sarayaku, supra, para. 164. 64