E/CN.4/2006/78 page 17 67. The Inter-American Court of Human Rights has on many occasions ruled in favour of indigenous communities under the American Convention on Human Rights (“Pact of San José, Costa Rica”) in, for instance, cases in Nicaragua, Belize, the United States of America, Paraguay and Suriname. However, the States concerned do not always fulfil their obligations, and these opinions and rulings sometimes remain without effect, which has serious consequences for protection of the human rights of indigenous peoples. 68. A landmark case is that of the Mayagna (Sumo) Awas Tingni Community v. Nicaragua (2001). The Court’s judgement concluded that the Government of Nicaragua had violated the rights of the indigenous community by awarding a logging concession within its traditional territory without the community’s consent and without heeding its requests for titling of its ancestral territory. To date, the Nicaraguan Government has not taken action that is remotely sufficient to give effect to the judgement and the decision on interim measures handed down by the Court. Four years after this judgement and almost three years after the 15-month deadline set by the Court expired, the lands of the Awas Tingni Community have still been neither demarcated nor titled, which constitutes a continuing violation of the rights of ownership recognized by the Court and other international human rights instruments and bodies. As a result of this non-compliance, the community’s situation has deteriorated drastically, to the point where it is in a much more precarious situation regarding the enjoyment of its human rights than when the case first entered the international system, casting serious doubts on this system’s effectiveness to bring about change in the standards and policies of States where indigenous peoples are concerned. 69. A dispute has been going on since 2003 between the Kichwa people of Sarayaku and the Government of Ecuador owing to a transnational oil company’s activities on their territory. Having exhausted all domestic legal remedies, Sarayaku lodged a complaint with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, which requested the State to take precautionary measures in favour of the Sarayaku. In view of the State’s failure to respond, the case was referred to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. In June 2005 the Court once more requested the State to take interim measures in favour of the indigenous community and to inform it in due course of its compliance (in order to protect the lives and personal safety of individuals, ensure free movement along the river, remove the threat posed by explosives placed within the community’s territory and ensure that violence in the region is reduced, among other things). In October 2005 the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights convened a new session to hear the opposing parties. 70. In June 2005 the Inter-American Court of Human Rights handed down a judgement in the case of the indigenous Yakye Axa community of Paraguay concerning a territorial claim the community had submitted as early as 1993. The Court decided that the State had violated the Yakye Axa community’s right to life and property and ordered the State to make over the claimed land free of charge, provide the community with the necessary basic services and promote its development, and adopt legislative, administrative and such other measures as might be necessary to guarantee the effective enjoyment of the right to property of the members of indigenous communities.