Prior Consultations in Plurinational Bolivia: Democracy, Rights and Real Life Experiences

Abstract

While the Bolivian ‘post’ consultation about the contested construction of a highway through the TIPNIS has received a lot of attention, very little is known about the 27 prior consultations that have been concluded between June 2007 and February 2012 in its hydrocarbon sector. This article focuses on these procedures and presents three emblematic cases in more detail. It identifies frequent shortcomings of consultation practices like the ‘information hurdle’, irregularities, the limited decision-making power of affected local populations and the lack of transparency regarding the compensation payments. The article argues that consultations could be improved by complementing international human rights instruments on indigenous rights with insights from deliberative theories. It concludes that as long as local ideas of self-determined development remain subordinated to prioritized extractive industries, the right to free, prior and informed consent (FPIC) will remain distant, even in a plurinational state like Bolivia.

Keywords:

• Prior consultations
• indigenous rights
• extractive industries
• Bolivia
• deliberative democracy

Acknowledgements

The author wants to thank Matthias Basedau, Johannes Schulz, Nancy Postero, John McNeish and two anonymous LACES reviewers for their very useful comments to a previous version of this paper. The author gratefully acknowledges financial support of the Fritz Thyssen Foundation for field research in Bolivia.

Notes

[1] However, there are likely to be tensions between the requirement of international human rights to take into account the decision-making norms and representative institutions of indigenous peoples, on the one hand, and the requirement of deliberative theories that deliberations should be inclusive and egalitarian. Moreover, the influential character of prior consultations (that have the explicit aim of reaching an agreement or the consent of the consulted group) that is highlighted in international human rights appears to be stronger than the rather vague assertion of deliberative democrats that deliberations should somehow be consequential (see Dryzek 2010, 10).

[2] http://websie.eclac.cl/sisgen/ConsultaIntegrada.asp, accessed on 20 July 2011.

[3] www.cidob-bo.org, accessed on 10 October 2011.

[4] For more information, see www.hidrocarburos.gob.bo, accessed on 26 September 2011.

[5] www.reporteenergia.com, accessed on 23 September 2011.

[6] Similar internal conflicts and divisions over compensation payments emerged in the case of the consultation with Weenhayek peoples described by Humphreys Bebbington (2012).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Almut Schilling-Vacaflor

Almut Schilling-Vacaflor is at the German Institute of Global and Area Studies, Neuer Jungfernstieg 21, 20354 Hamburg, Germany (Email: [email protected]).