Conference on Forests at the Crossroads of International Law

The workshop took place on September 4-5, 2023, at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark. It comprised several panels on the position of forests within international law, including topics such as forests and trade, deforestation and trade, among others.
WTO Colombia´s team member Rafael Tamayo-Álvarez participated in this event with the paper entitled: “A human rights perspective to carbon sequestration projects on indigenous land in the Americas.” This paper examines the role of indigenous rights in voluntary carbon markets. The paper pertains to the emerging research field called “just transitions,” which analyzes the distributive effects of market-based climate action initiatives promised in the financialization of everyday life and nature. The paper has two sections: the first seeks to understand the political economy of forest governance driven by carbon markets. It conceptualizes voluntary REED+ projects from a global value chain perspective, underscoring how indigenous communities create value from which they are dispossessed through a network of private contracts. The second section explores the scope of the IACtHR jurisprudence regarding indigenous rights to collective property and cultural identity to highlight its potential and limits as a form of resistance to improve the position of indigenous communities within carbon market dynamics.