ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on one of the most proactive and well-known courts of Latin America: the Constitutional Court of Colombia. Its precedents on the protection of the right to consultation and the Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) of Indigenous Peoples (and other historically discriminated groups within this country) is one of the examples that have put this unique and peripheral South American court on the global map. This article explains why Colombian case law may be considered transformative and how it developed balanced standards to protect Indigenous Peoples. The study also provides graphics explaining how the court decided 123 cases over a period of 25 years, relating to the review of legislation and direct interventions in protected territories. In addition, the chapter analyses the relevance of binding consent as an alternative to the difficult – or wrongly defined – category of “veto power”.
