Judges from the Caribbean Court of Justice are currently in Belize for their second visit. They will participate in the 6th Biennial Conference of the Caribbean Association of Judicial Officers (CAJO), which Chief Justice Kenneth Benjamin and the Belize Judiciary are hosting.
That conference takes place tomorrow, but the visit from the CCJ judges gave them the perfect opportunity to preside over a compliance hearing between the Government of Belize, and the leaders of the Indigenous Maya from Southern Belize. They've been closely following the implementation of their 2015 judgment which recognizes that the Maya people from the 40 villages in Toledo have customary land rights.
But, turning this idea of Maya customary land rights into a real thing that is recognized by the Ministry of Natural Resources has been a major challenge for both the Barrow Administration and the Indigenous Maya. And depending on who you talk to, the two sides have opposing views about the reason it is moving so slowly.
That brings us to today's hearing before the judges of the CCJ. Since the last time we've reported on these hearings, a number of positive developments have occurred to push the process forward. The two sides have agreed to an alternative dispute mechanism for the Maya to lodge complaints they may have of incursions into what they say are their customary lands. An Authority has also been appointed to hear these complaints.
There are a few other steps, such as the government conducting consultations, as well as the actual mapping out of exactly where are these Maya customary lands.
The two sides made their report to the judges today about those pending issues, as well as other challenges they are facing, and when the hearing was done, we got a chance to speak with Cristina Coc, the spokesperson for the Maya Leaders Alliance and the Toledo Alcalde's Association. Here's her take on the progress of this implementation:
Cristina Coc - Spokesperson, MLA/TAA
"Today was one of the regular compliance hearings with the Caribbean Court of Justice. It is certainly an honor to have them visit Belize and to be here in person. And I want to extend our deepest gratitude and welcome on behalf of the Maya communities."
"We were subject to making reports, both sides, on the progress that we have made on some of the issues that remain with respect to the implementation of the consent order."
"In light of not yet having legislative mechanisms to protect these rights that have been affirmed by the court, we moved to institute or to develop a framework for dispute resolution, in the interim. The dispute resolution framework is really to help to address some of the incursions, the ongoing incursions. Some of those include illegal logging concessions that are granted, oil exploration that is also being pursued on Maya lands, currently as we speak, and to begin to look at where land might have been sold or granted to third party interests or even to government agencies. And so, we, with the assistance of the court, and the supervision of the court, were able to agree on a dispute resolution framework. That dispute resolution framework mandated that an authority be appointed, mutually agreed upon by both parties."
"We recently learned, through the Authority herself, that she has been appointed. This is Dean Rosa Solorio from George Washington University. She is also very credible and an expert in her own right of indigenous rights, on International human rights norms and standards. And so, the appellants and the Maya people have no objections to her appointment."
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