From the implementation gap to Indigenous empowerment: Prior consultation in Latin America

Latin America is a region of great cultural and ethnic diversity, home to over 45 million members of Indigenous Peoples (UNDP, n.d.). Thanks to the mobilisation of their organisations globally (Brysk, 2000), and their contestation of norms, Indigenous Peoples have gained significant recognition and protection of their rights in international (ILO 169, UNDRIP) and regional instruments (ADRIP). However, national normative frameworks and, particularly, government practice fall far short of these standards. This inconsistency was identified by the first Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, Rodolfo Stavenhagen, who referred to the “implementation gap” (Economic and Social Council, 2006, para. 5), a much-used concept by scholars working on Indigenous rights, to describe the continuing difficulties in realising Indigenous rights at the domestic level (Espinoza & Ignacio, 2015).