Today, the Inter-American Court on Human Rights issued a decisive and favorable sentence to the U’wa Indigenous people of Colombia, culminating their 25-year-long legal journey before the Inter-American human rights system. Key elements of their ruling include full U’wa control of their reservation, reparations for past harms, co-administration of their sacred Mount Zizuma (El Cocuy), and the inclusion of their unique cosmovision in decision-making that affects them. We underscore the Court’s unanimous recognition of the U’wa right to collective ownership of their territory, the Colombian government’s obligation to clarify the U’wa colonial land titles, and the subsequent reparations required for damages created by this omission.
All credit is due to the U’wa people, who have stood up for their collective rights since the 1990s, facing down oil companies, illegal armed groups, and an often indifferent government. In this case, the arc of history is bending – even if slowly – toward justice at the insistence of the U’wa people themselves. Now, the Petro administration must urgently act to fully comply with the sentence in 2025. The sentence also reaffirms the notion that governments – whether in Colombia or elsewhere – should not impose extractive industries within Indigenous ancestral territories in violation of their cultures and cosmovisions that almost always oppose the destruction of Mother Earth.
