INDIGENOUS PEOPLES’ RIGHTS AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT: AN INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC LAW PERSPECTIVE

The article addresses the well-known issue of indigenous collective rights’ protection under international law, which has grown critical in recent years, primarily as a result of the dangerous impacts of economic globalization on environment and climate. Once outlined the unsatisfactory legal treatment that contemporary international law reserves to indigenous peoples, an attempt will be made to face this problem through the “new generation” of trade and investment agreements, which have recently been opened to the safeguard of sustainable development and to the non-economic interests related to it. Then, the relationship between indigenous peoples and sustainable development will be explored. The article will suggest to elaborate on the vague concept of sustainability in order to encompass the main indigenous collective rights, based on the strategic role that indigenous traditional knowledge plays in the preservation of sustainable ecosystems. By so doing, international economic law might offer a new avenue for indigenous rights’ protection.