Order of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights of July 6, 2004 Provisional Measures regarding Ecuador Matter of Pueblo Indígena Sarayaku HAVING SEEN: 1. The June 15, 2004 brief of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (hereinafter “the Commission” or “the “the Inter-American Commission”) where, pursuant to Article 63(2) of the American Convention on Human Rights (hereinafter “the Convention” or “the American Convention”) and Article 25 of the Rules of Procedure of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (hereinafter “the Court” or “the Inter-American Court”), it submitted to the Court a request seeking the adoption of provisional measures on behalf of the members of the Kichwa indigenous community of Sarayaku (hereinafter “the community” or “the indigenous people”) and its defenders, with respect to the Republic of Ecuador (hereinafter “the State” or “Ecuador”), to protect their lives, integrity of person, freedom of movement and the special relationship they have to their ancestral land, in connection with a petition that the Asociación del Pueblo Kichwa de Sarayaku, the Center for Justice and International Law and the Center for Economic and Social Rights (hereinafter “the petitioners”) filed with the Inter-American Commission. 2. The Commission based its request on the following allegations of facts: a) in 1992, Ecuador legally recognized the Sarayaku community’s ancestral territory by granting it the title to that territory. On July 26, 1996 the State concluded a participation contract with the Argentine business, Compañía General de Combustible (hereinafter the “CGC”) granting a concession for oil exploration and drilling over an area of 200,000 hectares, called Block 23, in the province of Pastaza, Ecuador. Some 65% of this block is within the ancestral territory of the Kichwa indigenous community of Sarayaku. The contract was allegedly signed without consulting the Sarayaku people and without having obtained their informed consent; b) according to the information supplied by the petitioners, between 1996 and 2002, the CGC made several attempts to negotiate to enter Sarayaku territory and, using questionable means, tried to exact from the indigenous people their consent for the oil drilling; c) despite a court order in which the Pastaza Civil Law Judge of First Instance ordered precautionary measures for the Kichwa people of Sarayaku, and an order from the Ombudsman’s Office protecting that community’s rights, CGC employees and agents of the State have taken measures detrimental to that people’s interests;