52 XI ARTICLE 21 OF THE AMERICAN CONVENTION (RIGHT TO PROPERTY) IN RELATION TO ARTICLE 1(1) (OBLIGATION TO RESPECT RIGHTS) Arguments of the representatives 122. The representatives argued that the State violated the right to property established in Article 21 of the American Convention based on the following considerations: a) while the initial alleged violation – forcible expulsion of the community from its traditional lands and territory – took place on November 29, 1986, prior to Suriname’s accession to the Convention and acceptance of the Court’s jurisdiction, as a matter of fact and law, the violation of Article 21 is of a continuing nature; b) continuing violations are particularly common in cases where indigenous and tribal peoples have been forcibly removed from their traditional lands; c) the Governing Body of the International Labor Organization has routinely exercised jurisdiction over the consequences of such relocations, particularly as they relate to property rights, which persist even in cases where the originating event took place decades prior to the entry into force of Convention No. 169; d) the alleged victims continue to be deprived of their property rights by the following acts and omissions of the State: i) the denial of justice, which in itself deters the alleged victims from reestablishing their community on their traditional lands; and ii) the failure of Suriname to establish legislative or administrative mechanisms for the alleged victims to assert and secure their rights of tenure in accordance with N’djuka customary law, values and usage; e) the alleged victims’ property rights are guaranteed and protected under Article 21 of the Convention, which has an autonomous meaning and is not restricted to property as defined by domestic legal regimes; the provision also protects the rights to property of “members of […] indigenous communities within the framework of communal property”; f) the alleged victims have been deprived of their customary means of subsistence due to their forcible expulsion from their traditional territory and their continuing inability to return; as a result, they live in poverty; and g) forcible eviction or involuntary resettlement is prohibited under international law because it does grave and disastrous harm to the basic civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights of both individuals and collectivities. In the case of tribal peoples, forcible eviction completely severs their various relationships with their ancestral lands.