The Woman Who Breaks Mega-Dams

In recent years, indigenous peoples around the world, and particularly in Latin America, have turned to litigation to defend their rights. But Buendía's story speaks as much to the limits as to the potential of "prior consultation" as a guarantor of those rights. As Almut Schilling-Vacaflor and Riccarda Flemmerrecently asserted in a paper for the German Institute of Global and Area Studies, effective consultations between governments and indigenous groups on development projects depend on how the legal principle is carried out in practice. Are state institutions impartial and capable of balancing diverse interests? Who holds the real decision-making power: the government, the corporation, or the consulted group? Are the agreements these parties reach binding?
http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/04/the-woman-who-fights-dams/361352/