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Latin American International Law and Afro-Descendant Peoples

After the Third World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia, and Related Intolerance, held by the United Nations in Durban, South Africa, in 2001, an important movement emerged. The African diaspora communities in the Americas, or “Afro-descendants,” as they prefer to self-identify, began to seek legal recognition in the context of international human rights law, and especially within the inter-American human rights system. Progress has been remarkable, including the rulings of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, changes in the constitutional and legal systems of Latin American countries, and a UN draft of a Declaration of the Rights of People of African Descent, as part of the International Decade for People of African Descent (2015–2024). However, conceptual, technical, and doctrinal issues still exist in defining the legal agency of people of African descent under international law. Who are Afro-descendants in legal terms, and how do we understand “Afro-descendance” within the context of Indigenous and tribal peoples? In this essay, I explain how different regional bodies in Latin America have interpreted Indigenous rights progressively to overcome the marginalization of Afro-descendants, and address some important questions that remain unclear despite this welcome evolution.