55
B)
INJURED PARTY
188. The Tribunal has previously held that in a contentious case before the Court, the
Commission must individually name the beneficiaries of possible reparations.208 However,
given the size and geographic diversity of the Saramaka people,209 and particularly the
collective nature of reparations to be ordered in the present case, the Court does not find it
necessary in the instant case to individually name the members of the Saramaka people in
order to recognize them as the injured party. Nevertheless, the Court observes that the
members of the Saramaka people are identifiable in accordance with Saramaka customary
law, given that each Saramaka individual belongs to only one of the twelve matrilineal lös in
which the community is organized.
189. Thus, in accordance with the Court’s jurisprudence regarding indigenous and tribal
peoples,210 the Court considers the members of the Saramaka people as the “injured party”
in the present case who, due to their status as victims of the violations established in the
present Judgment (supra paras. 116, 154, 156, 158, 175, and 185), are the beneficiaries of
the collective forms of reparations ordered by the Court.
C)
MEASURES OF REDRESS
190. The Court will proceed to summarize the parties’ arguments with regards to
reparations, and will then determine which measures must be ordered to redress the
damage to the Saramakas caused by the violations established in the present Judgment.
191. In order to redress the damage caused to the Saramakas, the Commission requested
that the Court order the State to, inter alia, remove the legal provisions that impede
protection of the right to property of the Saramaka people and adopt, in its domestic
legislation, and through effective and fully informed consultations with the Saramaka
people, legislative, administrative, and other measures needed to protect, through special
mechanisms, the territory in which they exercise their right to communal property, in
accordance with its customary land use practices, without prejudice to other tribal and
indigenous communities; refrain from acts that might give rise to agents of the State itself
or third parties, acting with the State’s acquiescence or tolerance, affecting the right to
property or integrity of the territory of the Saramaka people; repair the environmental
damage caused by the logging concessions awarded by the State in the territory
traditionally occupied and used by the Saramaka people, and take the necessary steps to
approve, in accordance with Suriname’s constitutional procedures and the provisions of the
American Convention, such legislative and other measures as may be needed to provide
judicial protection and give effect to the collective and individual rights of the Saramaka
people in relation to the territory it has traditional occupied and used. Furthermore, the
Commission requested monetary compensation for property damage sustained as a result of
the State’s violations, adding that any “compensation cannot be seen from an individual
perspective, since the victims are members of a community and the Community itself has
been affected.”
208
Cf. Case of the Ituango Massacres v. Colombia. Preliminary Objection, Merits, Reparations and Costs.
Judgment of July 1, 2006. Series C No. 148, para. 98, and Case of Goiburu et al., supra note 11, para. 29. Cf. also
Case of The Mayagna (Sumo) Awas Tingni Community, supra note 49, paras. 162-167.
209
The Saramaka population is comprised of approximately 30,000 people. Given the dearth of accurate
census information on the Saramaka community, estimates broadly range from 25,000 to 34,482 members. The
Saramaka people are also dispersed throughout the Upper Suriname River, Brokopondo District, and other areas of
Suriname, including Paramaribo (supra para. 80).
210
Cf. Case of The Mayagna (Sumo) Awas Tingni Community, supra note 49, para. 164; Case of the
Indigenous Community Yakye Axa, supra note 75, para. 189, and Case of the Indigenous Community
Sawhoyamaxa, supra note 75, para. 204.
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