Access to Remedy for Indigenous Right Holders in Relation to Investment-Related Human Rights Abuses – a Critical Search for an Effective Legal Framework.

Kunuji, Valentine (2022) Access to Remedy for Indigenous Right Holders in Relation to Investment-Related Human Rights Abuses – a Critical Search for an Effective Legal Framework. Doctoral thesis, University of East Anglia.

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Abstract

The lack of access to effective remedy is arguably one of the most compelling challenges faced by indigenous peoples, particularly within the context of investment-related human rights abuses. The search for an effective legal framework to provide access to remedy across judicial and non-judicial settings has been characterised mostly by limitations and prospects.

Given the above challenge, State and non-State actors have argued that the international investment law (IIL) framework ought to provide access to effective remedy for indigenous peoples whose rights are actually or potentially adversely impacted within the context of IIL (Indigenous Rights Holders). This has led to increased attention on the IIL regime as a potentially effective legal framework with the capacity to provide access to effective remedy to Indigenous Rights Holders. According to the proponents of this argument, access to effective remedies in IIL consists in allowing Indigenous Right Holders to participate as actual parties in relevant Investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) arbitration. However, opponents contend that the IIL framework already provides third parties including Indigenous Right Holders with the opportunity for meaningful participation in ISDS arbitration through the amicus curiae procedure.

This thesis argues that the proposition for participation by Indigenous Right-holders as actual parties in ISDS arbitration oversimplifies indigenous peoples’ problem of lack of access to effective remedy which has substantive and procedural dimensions. The thesis critically interrogates these dimensions and ultimately aims to answer the question of whether and how, and if at all, to what extent the IIL regime ought to provide access to remedy for Indigenous Right holders. In the final analysis, the thesis leans in favour of a pluralistic approach to access to remedy along with a consideration of alternative platforms for access to remedies pursuant to the ‘all roads to remedy’ theory propounded by the UN Working Group.

Item Type: Thesis (Doctoral)
Faculty \ School: Faculty of Social Sciences > School of Law
Depositing User: Chris White
Date Deposited: 28 Mar 2023 10:58
Last Modified: 28 Mar 2023 10:58
URI: https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/91696
DOI:

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