Venoaks19 in the case of the Saramaka People v. Suriname. Regarding the evidence provided
during the public hearing, the Court received the testimony of the alleged victims, Captain
Ricardo Pané and Captain Jona Gunther, and of the expert witness, Victoria Tauli-Corpuz,20
proposed by the representatives, and also the opinion of the expert witness Jeremie Gilbert,21
proposed by the Commission.22 The Court also received various documents as helpful evidence
following the hearing in this case, as well as after it had conducted the on-site procedure (supra
paras. 12, 15 and 16).
B. Admission of the evidence
B.1 Admission of the documentary evidence
21.
In this case, as in others, the Court admits those documents presented by the parties and
by the Commission at the appropriate procedural moment, or requested as helpful evidence by
the Court or its President, which were not contested or opposed, and the authenticity of which
was not challenged.23 The documents requested by the Court that were provided by the parties
following the public hearing and the on-site procedure are incorporated into the body of evidence
in application of Article 58 of the Rules of Procedure (supra paras. 10, 12, 15 and 16).
22.
Regarding the helpful evidence requested following the visit, the representatives objected
to Annex 7(d) presented by the State, which consisted in photographs of the registration of titles
in the Domain Office in Suriname, because parts of them were illegible and because they had
been submitted in Dutch. Meanwhile, the State indicated that the map provided by the
representatives that relates to the Maroon population in the territories claimed by the Kaliña and
Lokono peoples had been drawn up unilaterally, and therefore did not “provide a correct
depiction of the truth.” In addition, the State contested the map provided by the representatives
during the hearing establishing the territory claimed by the Kaliña and Lokono peoples, because
the information it contained was incorrect. The Court decides to admit these documents, taking
into consideration the elements in them that have been contested (infra para. 27). None of the
statements and affidavits submitted in this case were contested by the parties.
19
The expert opinion of Magda Hoever-Venoaks referred to the legal status of the provisions of the Suriname Mining
Act and the Suriname Forestry Management Act that provide remedies to interested parties, as well as to other remedies
available under the State’s administrative and constitutional law. Cf. Case of Kaliña and Lokono peoples v. Suriname.
Order of the President of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, supra, twenty-first considerandum and footnote 4.
20
The expert opinion of Victoria Tauli-Corpuz, Special Rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples of the United
Nations, referred to international law and policy on protected areas and the sustainable conservation and use of biological
diversity in relation to the rights of indigenous peoples, including in the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD).
21
The expert opinion of Jeremie Gilbert, Reader in Law of the University of East London, School of Law and Social
Sciences, referred to: (a) the international standards and the standards of comparative law applicable to situations in
which tension exists between the right to private property of non-indigenous persons and the right to collective property
of the indigenous peoples, as well as to situations of real or apparent tension between the rights of indigenous peoples
and environmental protection, offering elements of analysis regarding the scope of State obligations to elaborate and
implement initiatives and policies in the area of environmental law; (b) the application of a model to analyze right
restrictions that takes into consideration and grants specific effects to the right to property of the indigenous peoples,
and (c) possible compensation measures that a State could implement in response to the result of his model for
analyzing the restrictions of rights.
22
The purpose of these statements is established in the President’s Order of December 18, 2014 (supra footnote 8).
23
Cf. Case of Velásquez Rodríguez v. Honduras. Merits. Judgment of July 29, 1988. Series C No. 4, para. 140, and
Case of López Lone el al. v. Honduras. Preliminary objection, Merits, Reparations and Costs. Judgment of October 5,
2015. Series C No. 302, para. 31.
11