67
because the Congress has considered the productivity and economic land uses, in
keeping with the priorities set by the law of a country that must marshall all
available resources to reach the global development of its population and to fulfil its
national and international commitments.”
106. The second major flaw lies is that the INDI is only empowered to conduct
negotiations related to purchase the lands or to resettle indigenous community
members. In other words, the proceedings before such institution are fully
dependant upon the willingness of one of the parties — consent to sell the lands, on
the one side, and consent to resettle, on the other — and not upon a judicial or
administrative assessment to settle the dispute. In this regard, expert witness
Augusto Fogel pointed out that:
the main weakness of the law lies in the innocuous scope of the procedure: there are
provisions that are merely declarative and the operative bodies established in the law do
not have responsibility or powers to comply fully with its terms. No penalties for noncompliance with the law are provided for, and as a result, the application of its provisions
is partial or commensurate with the will to cooperate of those obliged
107. Finally, as it stems from the Chapter on Proven Facts in the instant Judgment,
Paraguayan administrative authorities have failed to conduct enough technical
surveys. According to the case file kept in this Court, the only two steps taken in the
instant case are: i) visual inspection and verification of the Community census
carried out by an IBR officer (supra paras. 73(25) and (26), whereby it was
determined that “the claimed piece of land (Retiro Santa Elisa) belonged to [the]
ancestors [of the members of the Community,] according to them,” and ii)
anthropological report by the Centro de Estudios Antropológicos de la Universidad
“Nuestra Señora de la Asunción” [Center of Antropological Studies of the “Our Lady
of Asunción” University] (supra para. 73(37)), that points out that “[t]he lands
claimed by the Sawhoyamaxa [C]ommunity have been traditionally occupied by their
ancestors, the Chanawatsams, and that their descendants are still in possession
thereof.” The second report was not even requested by state authorities, it was
instead submitted by the representatives of the Community. None of these reports
include a detailed survey individualizing the specific area of the Chanawatsam
territory that belongs to the members of the Sawhoyamaxa Community as a result of
the attachment and special significance these particular lands have for their
members. The second report (uncontested by the parties)181 only shows that the
claimed lands are within the ancestral lands of the Sawahoyamaxa Community, but it
fails to specify the extension and boundaries of said lands. Such lack of technical and
scientific actions render the proceedings undertaken before the INDI and the IBR
ineffective.
108. On the grounds of the foregoing, the Court reaffirms its previous decision,182
according to which the land claim administrative proceedings have been ineffective
and failed to grant the Sawhoyamaxa Community the possibility to regain access to
their traditional lands.
*
181
In its closing written arguments, the State pointed out that “it has informed that the lands
claimed by the Indigenous [C]ommunity were declared part of their traditional habitat.”
182
Cr. Case of the Indigenous Community Yakye Axa, supra note 1, para. 98.