Interview with Marcus Colchester, founder of the NGO Forest Peoples Programme, on the ‘Free, Prior and Informed Consent’ of communities

Abstract

In this interview, Marcus Colchester spells out the dual origin of “Free, Prior and Informed Consent” in the human rights world, and the use of it as a collective right. He highlights the tensions that this use may generate between the human right framework, national laws, and community customary norms. Finally he comments on the benefits and difficulties he met when striving to introduce this collective right into sustainability standards such as the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil standard, because of the pluralism of modes of normativity.