UDTR Global Rights of Nature Radar

Legal Protection of Indigenous Peoples Under International Environmental Law

Identification

Public canonical key

doi:10.47134/ijlj.v2i4.4112

Authors

Thomas Sheku Marah

Reported year

2025

Reported language

en

Source type

article

First detected

2026-11-09T19:04:47.736246+00:00

Last metadata observation

2026-11-09T19:04:47.736246+00:00

Last HTTP verification

Not checked

Institutions reported by the source

Nusa Putra University

Reported affiliation countries

ID

Documentary abstract — original language

Indigenous peoples have a unique relationship with their environment, but they are under immense threat from environmental destruction, dispossession of land, and climate change. Even with the UNDRIP and CBD, although there are frameworks comprehensively defining their rights, protective measures lack adequate enforcement and are superficial at best. This article intends to focus on how much international environmental law extends in protecting an indigenous person's environmental rights by conducting a normative legal analysis of basic international treaties, case law, and regional human rights adjudications. The results suggest a gap between extensive legal recognition of indigenous rights and the perpetual challenge of state-controlled borders, corporate dominance, and insufficient enforcement policies. There are major gaps regarding the violation of FPIC, legal and illegal land tenure thresholds, widespread poverty, and restricted civil participation in the Amazon, Southeast Asia, and East African regions. The article examines gaps such as minimal legal oversight and looser regulation on state and corporate actors that impede shielded privileges from public scrutiny. To achieve these objectives, the author suggests strengthening these identified gaps through the establishment of bottom-up accountability approaches, integration of indigenous law frameworks, and an approach that views governance and environmental issues as human rights matters. The study advocates for the incorporation of indigenous peoples as active participants at the national and international levels of environmental governance, with full legal recognition and protection of their rights.

Identifiers

OPENALEX

W4410922682

DOI

10.47134/ijlj.v2i4.4112

Documentary context

Documentary family

Scholarship

Source-reported types

article

Entity mentions are not evidence of legal recognition. Jurisdiction studied is separate from author affiliation country.

Sources

OpenAlex · Record 1 · Record 2

• DOI · https://doi.org/10.47134/ijlj.v2i4.4112
• OpenAlex · https://openalex.org/W4410922682

Documented bibliographic relations

Source-declared references and links; they do not establish legal support or UGLC qualification. Up to 20 outgoing references are displayed.

• openalex:w1483849010 · CITES
• openalex:w1520415879 · CITES
• openalex:w2006901350 · CITES
• openalex:w2009537887 · CITES
• openalex:w2029456687 · CITES
• openalex:w2073484685 · CITES
• openalex:w2497987375 · CITES
• Can Rights of Nature Make Development More Sustainable? Why Some Ecuadorian lawsuits Succeed and Others Fail · CITES
• openalex:w2962577329 · CITES
• openalex:w2964076651 · CITES
• openalex:w3124207915 · CITES
• openalex:w4212829745 · CITES
• openalex:w4236967847 · CITES
• openalex:w4409973918 · CITES
• openalex:w619907763 · CITES
• openalex:w644653675 · CITES

2 incoming references within the detected corpus

Documentary status

Relevance pending

Library

This identity is not yet included in the Legal Library.