A/HRC/12/34 page 16 otherwise use, whether or not they hold ownership title to those lands.”24 One can easily imagine innumerable ways in which indigenous peoples and their interests may be affected by development projects or legislative initiatives in the absence of a corresponding legal entitlement. 45. The specific characteristics of the consultation procedure that is required by the duty to consult will necessarily vary depending upon the nature of the proposed measure and the scope of its impact on indigenous peoples. Constitutional or legislative reform measures that concern or affect all the indigenous peoples of a country will require appropriate consultation and representative mechanisms that will in some way be open to, and reach, all of them. By contrast, measures that affect particular indigenous peoples or communities, such as initiatives for natural resource extraction activity in their territories, will require consultation procedures focused on the interests of, and engagement with, those particularly affected groups. C. The requirement that consultations be in good faith, with the objective of achieving agreement or consent 46. The character of the consultation procedure and its object are also shaped by the nature of the right or interest at stake for the indigenous peoples concerned and the anticipated impact of the proposed measure. The Declaration establishes that, in general, consultations with indigenous peoples are to be carried out in “good faith … in order to obtain their free, prior and informed consent” (art. 19). This provision of the Declaration should not be regarded as according indigenous peoples a general “veto power” over decisions that may affect them, but rather as establishing consent as the objective of consultations with indigenous peoples. In this regard, ILO Convention No. 169 provides that consultations are to take place “with the objective of achieving agreement or consent on the proposed measure” (art. 6, para. 2). The somewhat different language of the Declaration suggests a heightened emphasis on the need for consultations that are in the nature of negotiations towards mutually acceptable arrangements, prior to the decisions on proposed measures, rather than consultations that are more in the nature of mechanisms for providing indigenous peoples with information about decisions already made or in the making, without allowing them genuinely to influence the decision-making process. 47. Necessarily, the strength or importance of the objective of achieving consent varies according to the circumstances and the indigenous interests involved. A significant, direct impact on indigenous peoples’ lives or territories establishes a strong presumption that the proposed measure should not go forward without indigenous peoples’ consent. In certain contexts, that presumption may harden into a prohibition of the measure or project in the absence of indigenous consent. The Declaration recognizes two situations in which the State is under an obligation to obtain the consent of the indigenous peoples concerned, beyond the general obligation to have consent as the objective of consultations. These situations include when the project will result in the relocation of a group from its traditional lands, and in cases 24 Report of the Committee set up to examine the representation alleging non-observance by Guatemala of the Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention, 1989 (No. 169), made under article 24 of the ILO Constitution by the Federation of Country and City Workers (FTCC), para. 48.

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