## Facts

- The Sawhoyamaxa Indigenous Community (Enxet-Lengua) sought restitution of its ancestral territory in Paraguay’s Chaco region, which had been occupied by private cattle ranches since the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
- Beginning in 1991, the community pursued administrative and judicial processes to recover roughly 8,000 hectares, but the claim remained unresolved for years.
- While excluded from its traditional lands, the community lived along a national road in precarious conditions without adequate food, potable water, sanitation, or effective access to health care.
- Community members, particularly children and the elderly, died from preventable or treatable causes associated with these conditions (including dehydration and infectious diseases).
- State authorities were informed of the situation, declared a state of emergency, and provided sporadic assistance, but the community’s living conditions and associated deaths continued.
- Deficiencies in registration and documentation left some community members without identity papers, limiting access to services and legal mechanisms.
- In 2001, a petition was filed with the Inter-American Commission, which referred the case to the Inter-American Court in 2005.

## Issues

1. Whether Paraguay violated the community’s collective property rights by failing to ensure access to and restitution of ancestral lands and by failing to provide effective procedures to vindicate those rights.
2. Whether Paraguay violated the right to life, including heightened duties toward children, by failing to take positive measures to prevent foreseeable deaths and severe risks arising from the community’s displacement and deprivation.
3. Whether Paraguay violated rights to recognition of juridical personality, personal integrity, fair trial, and judicial protection through documentation failures and ineffective or delayed remedies.

## Decision

- The Inter-American Court held Paraguay internationally responsible for violating the American Convention on Human Rights.
- The Court found violations of the right to property (collective indigenous property) due to the continued denial of access to ancestral lands and failure to secure restitution through effective procedures.
- The Court found violations of the right to life, and the rights of the child, based on Paraguay’s failure to adopt adequate measures to prevent foreseeable risks and deaths linked to the community’s living conditions.
- The Court found a violation of recognition of juridical personality due to shortcomings in documenting and registering community members, impairing their ability to exercise rights.
- The Court found violations of judicial guarantees and judicial protection because the land claim processes were not effective and were not resolved within a reasonable time.
- The Court ordered reparations including restitution of traditional lands (or acceptable alternative lands if restitution was justified as impossible), immediate measures to ensure minimum living conditions (food, water, health care, and basic infrastructure), compensation, and measures to prevent recurrence.

## Legal Principles

- Indigenous property rights under the right-to-property provision protect collective relationships to traditional lands and resources, including cultural and spiritual ties, and are not dependent on prior formal title.
- States have positive obligations under the right to life to prevent foreseeable threats to life, including by creating conditions necessary to avoid violations where authorities know of severe risks.
- Children receive special protection, requiring heightened preventive measures when deprivation and exclusion place them at particular risk.
- Effective remedies require procedures that are timely and capable of producing results; prolonged, unresolved processes for land restitution can violate fair trial and judicial protection guarantees.
- Recognition as a legal person includes practical state duties to register and document individuals so they can access services and exercise legal rights.
- Reparations for human rights violations may require restitution, guarantees of non-repetition (including procedural reforms), and compensation, tailored to restore rights and address resulting harms.

## Conclusion

The Court held that Paraguay’s prolonged failure to restore the Sawhoyamaxa community’s ancestral lands, coupled with ineffective remedies and inadequate protective measures amid known extreme deprivation, violated collective property rights, the right to life (especially for children), judicial guarantees, judicial protection, and recognition of juridical personality, and required restitution-focused and welfare-based reparations.


Sawhoyamaxa Indigenous Cmty. v. Paraguay, Inter-Am. Ct. H.R. (ser. C) No. 146 (Mar. 29, 2006)