E/CN.4/2006/78 page 10 adopted thus far. The Peace Agreement on indigenous rights and culture signed in 1995 should have been incorporated into the Constitution, but was not approved in the 1999 referendum; its implementation was therefore suspended, with adverse consequences for the rights of Guatemala’s indigenous peoples (see E/CN.4/2003/90/Add.2). 33. A particularly complex problem arises when different legal provisions relating to indigenous peoples have not been properly interpreted by various State bodies or when constitutional principles on the protection of human rights are gradually diluted through subsidiary legal standards. An illustration of this dilemma can be found in Peru, where Decree Law No. 22,175 governs the territorial reserves of the indigenous peoples “in voluntary isolation or in initial contact”. While all five existing territorial reserves have been demarcated, they have been subject to mining, hydrocarbon or forestry concessions that impinge on some of the indigenous peoples’ individual and collective rights. The State has still not defined the policy, legal framework or institutional arrangements needed to protect the rights of the indigenous peoples of Peru’s Amazon region. There is evidence of the damage caused to these peoples by various social and economic actors that come into permanent contact with them. 34. In 2005 the alarming situation of the indigenous peoples of the Amazon region of Peru, also affected by the gas pipeline that runs across the region, led to the creation of a Special Commission that drew up a bill on the protection of indigenous peoples in voluntary isolation or initial contact. But Congress formulated a different bill limiting and dismantling the special regime for protection of these peoples proposed by the Special Commission. Should this law be passed, it would leave the indigenous communities in of those reserves unprotected. 35. In Mexico implementation of the provision of the constitutional reform on indigenous issues adopted in 2001 is still pending; it neither meets the demands of the indigenous peoples nor complies with the Government commitments agreed upon in the 1996 peace negotiations (see E/CN.4/2004/80/Add.2). Although various States of the Republic subsequently adopted their own legislative reforms on indigenous issues, their implementation has not yielded significant practical results for the indigenous peoples. The Special Rapporteur recommended in his report that the debate on constitutional reform on indigenous issues should be reopened at the national level. 36. One of the most important topics that call for constant attention is the role of the courts in the interpretation and application of domestic legislation and international human rights standards in matters relating to the human rights of indigenous peoples. Significant progress has been achieved in some countries, such as Canada, Colombia and Venezuela, but in others case law on indigenous rights appears to be at a standstill. There is a need for greater and ongoing training of judges and other judicial personnel on this subject. It is important to establish mechanisms for the effective recognition of legal pluralism; in other words, so that positive law and indigenous law can exist side by side. In countries based on English common law, in which case law is built up case by case, rulings and decisions very favourable to the indigenous communities have been handed down in some courts, while in others discriminatory attitudes are maintained (for example, the United States of America, Canada, Australia and New Zealand).