Indigenous Rights to Land Versus Extractivism - The Promise and Limits of ILO Convention No. 169 in Mexico

Indigenous and tribal communities often make claims to territory citing their longstanding ties to the land. Since 1989, they increasingly reference ILO Convention No. 169, the only legally binding international agreement on Indigenous and tribal peoples rights. This Element proposes a three-pronged analytical framework to assess the promise and limits of indigenous rights to land as influenced by international law. The framework calls for the place-specific investigation of the interrelations between: (1) indigenous identity politics, (2) citizenship regimes, and (3) land tenure regimes. Drawing on the case of Mexico, it argues that the ILO Convention has generally been a weak tool for securing rights to ancestral land and for effectively challenging the expansion of extractivism. Still, it has had numerous other significant socio-political implications, such as shaping discourses of resistance and incentivizing the use of prior consultation mechanisms in the context of territorial disputes.

List of contents

1. Introduction; 2. Historical overview and theoretical framework; 3. The right to land and territory in theory per ILO convention no. 169; 4. ILO convention no. 169 in practice in Mexico; 5. Conclusion: the promise and limits of ILO convention 169 in land disputes; Works cited.

Product details

• Authors: Tamara A. Wattnem
• Publisher: Cambridge Academic
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Release: 31.10.2025
• EAN: 9781009590549
• ISBN: 978-1-009-59054-9
• Weight: 500 g
• Illustrations: Worked examples or Exercises
• Series: Elements in Indigenous Environmental Research
• Subjects: Sociology, LAW / Environmental, International Law, Indigenous Peoples, Ethnic groups and multicultural studies, Ethnic minorities & multicultural studies, Development Studies, Regional government, Indigenous people: governance and politics, property law, Indigenous land rights / property rights