Defining Peoples under the ICCPR and African Charter: Identification of Collective Claims to Natural Mineral Wealth

Abstract

Mineral and other natural resource wealth belong to the people who live on the land in which such natural wealth resides. This is articulated in Article 1(2) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) but is often compromised or forgotten entirely when governments and multinational extractors make deals to mine this wealth, dispossession and loss of culture almost an afterthought. Surprisingly, this article has been given little legal or other attention and certainly not of any scope sufficient to delineate which ‘peoples’ are entitled to contest access to and control over such natural wealth. Remedying this may provide marginalised groups with a strong foundation for collective legal claims to reassert control over and management of their mineral and other natural resource wealth. In turn, this may reduce the occurrence of plunder and extraction which takes place with little consideration for those who live on the land and the dispossession which often accompanies it. This article seeks a theoretical discussion of the issues involved in defining ‘peoples’, including collective rights, representation by the state and autochthony.