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Colorado Law’s Maya Land Rights and Development Project works with Belizean indigenous organizations to secure Maya customary land tenure and promote sustainable economic development opportunities for Maya communities.

To understand the relationship between indigenous peoples and their traditional lands, one need not look further than the indigenous Q'eqchi' and Mopan Maya communities in the Toledo District in southernmost Belize. The Maya, who make up more than half of the district’s population, collectively care for the land they have inhabited for generations by keeping their watersheds pristine and their rainforests lush and selectively harvested.

Environmental stewardship is as much a part of the Maya’s customary rules and values as is caring for one’s family.

As Cristina Coc, indigenous Q'eqchi' Mayan land rights activist and co-spokesperson of Maya Leaders Alliance, puts it: "The values [of environmental stewardship] are embedded in the way we define our existence."

Developers and corporations have long coveted this vast, largely untouched land, even drilling for oil and harvesting rainforests without the consent of the Maya people. The Maya have responded in turn, fighting these unwelcome encroachments onto their lands in both domestic and international human rights arenas. Finally, in 2015, the Maya were dealt a break. The Caribbean Court of Justice, the highest appellate court for Belize, handed down a landmark decision affirming that Maya communities in the Toledo region hold customary title to the lands they collectively use and occupy. The implication was historic: Belizean law recognized Maya property rights as equal in legitimacy to Western forms of property rights.

Since this legal victory—litigated by an international legal team that included Colorado Law's Dean S. James Anaya—the Maya people have been asked to answer a complex question: How do they thrive off their traditional lands and make their communities more economically resilient while also caring for the environment, individuals, and their collective well-being?

The Maya Land Rights and Development Project at Colorado Law, established in 2018 by the student-led Doman Society of International Law, seeks to help answer that question. The project works in partnership with the Maya Leaders Alliance (MLA), a nonprofit organization that represents the Q'eqchi' and Mopan Maya people, and the Toledo Alcaldes Association (TAA) to help Maya leadership strengthen local governance and build economic resilience in Maya communities.

"Maya land rights have been affirmed in the highest appellate court of Belize since 2015, yet implementation of the court order is slow and violations continue to occur, leading to ongoing litigation to defend and protect Maya land rights," observed Ashleigh Sawa (’19), student leader for the program. "Protection of land rights also means protection of Maya culture, custom, and livelihood; this is the aspect of the project that is the most important to me."

Sawa became involved with these efforts in August 2017 as a student in the American Indian Law Clinic, where she and Daimeon Shanks (’19) worked with the Maya Land Rights legal team on litigation strategy and preparation, international legal research, and reporting to international bodies such as the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and the Universal Periodic Review. In February 2018, Sawa was able to travel to Belize to attend a hearing before the Caribbean Court of Justice, held in the courtroom of the Supreme Court of Belize—an invaluable experience that allowed her to meet members of the Maya community and see up close the land being impacted.

The creation of the Maya Land Rights and Development Project will allow more students to become involved in this important work, Sawa said. It has already attracted the interest of both JD and LLM students as well as pro bono attorneys based in the U.S., Canada, and Belize.

Volunteers are involved in a variety of projects ranging from international advocacy and economic development work to helping implement the 2015 court order that recognized communal land rights for indigenous Maya communities. Examples of projects include:

• Developing legislation and regulations to provide protection for Maya communal lands, and mapping the boundaries of those lands
• Working with Maya leadership to develop and implement the Creating Maya Economies Initiative, whose goal is to strengthen local governance and find creative ways to develop local economies to meet standards of stewardship of land and sustainable development
• Partnering with the United Nations’ REDD+ program Deforestation Monitoring Body, which works to reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degradation
• Reporting to human rights monitoring bodies, including the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and the U.N. Human Rights Committee, on the status of Belize’s compliance with the country’s human rights obligations
• Establishing mechanisms and governance frameworks for the extraction of forest products
• Recommending policy and legislation reform for reducing forest loss

To learn more about the project, contact Patrick Lee (’18), Dean’s Fellow, at G.Patrick.Lee@colorado.edu.

Pictured: G. Patrick Lee ('18) and Ashleigh Sawa ('19) with leadership from the Jalacte village in Belize and members of the village’s legal team. Colorado Law students are helping to advocate for members of the village in a land rights case.