Indigenous Rights in Climate Governance: A Comparative Qualitative Study of Peru, Ecuador, and Colombia

This article examines how human rights paradigms are integrated into climate policymaking through institutional and regulatory governance, focusing on grassroots realities in the Global South. Addressing literature dominated by bibliometric meta-analyses and top-down normative studies, it adopts a qualitative comparative design covering Peru, Ecuador, and Colombia. Data are triangulated from key informant interviews, community observations, and legal discourse analysis. The findings reveal a persistent paradox: although international legal frameworks increasingly recognise procedural rights, market-based mitigation initiatives such as Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) may reproduce forms of carbon colonialism. This governance architecture can bypass Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC), as illustrated by the Kichwa experience in Peru’s Cordillera Azul National Park. Indigenous agency has nevertheless generated legal and institutional resistance, including the December 2024 Bellavista Mixed Court ruling, the Sarayaku people’s Kawsak Sacha declaration, Ecuador’s Yasuní referendum, and Colombia’s asymmetrical decentralisation under Decree 632 of 2018. The article also considers Inter-American Court of Human Rights Advisory Opinion OC-32/25 and highlights solastalgia as an often-overlooked psychological consequence of climate change. It concludes that formal rights recognition remains limited without power redistribution, direct territorial funding, and effective enforcement. The study is particularly relevant to SDGs 10, 13, 15, and 16, with implications for SDG 3.