Xákmok Kásek Indigenous Community v. Paraguay (Ser. C No. 214)

The Inter-American Court of Human Rights held that Republic of Paraguay violated Articles 21, 8, 25, 4, 5 , 3, and 19 of the American Convention on Human Rights by failing to ensure the rights of the Xákmok Kásek Indigenous Community to their ancestral property. Articles 21, 8, 25, 4, 5, 3, and 19 of the American Convention on Human Rights recognizes the right of American peoples to communal property, judicial guarantees, judicial protection, life, personal integrity, juridical personality, and the rights of the child, respectively. The Court determined that, by delaying the processing of the tribe's territorial claims, the State rendered it impossible for the tribe to take control of their property and placed the tribe in a vulnerable situation with regards to medicine, food, and sanitation that threatened the tribe's integrity and survival. The Court ordered the State to return the ancestral property, adopt into domestic law appropriate legislative mechanisms for indigenous peoples to reclaim ancestral territory, provide health care clinics, establish a community development fund, and pay adequate compensatory damages.