Undoing historical injustice: the role of the Forest Rights Act and the Supreme Court in departing from colonial forest laws

ABSTRACT In terms of land tenure security, forest dwellers in India, who own and manage less than 3% of forested land nationwide, are among the worst off in the world. Vulnerable to forced eviction at any point, they stand at risk of losing their homes and means of survival with little legal redress. The Forest Rights Act of 2006, an attempt to increase their security, recognizes both individual and community land claims and mandates a uniform process for granting legal title. Greater recognition of forest rights, however, implicates the interests of powerful extractive industries also seeking control over forest land. In the Niyamgiri case, the Indian Supreme Court defended an indigenous claim against a multinational corporation by tying cultural rights to land. This reasoning pushed Indian jurisprudence closer to developing international law on indigenous land rights, particularly that of the Interamerican system, which can offer guidance for building on this precedent.