2411 corporate requirements, lender’s requirements, Indigenous Nations expectations. There is a crucial distinction between Free, Prior, and Informed Consent (FPIC) and consultation. FPIC is an important feature of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) and rooted in international human rights law and increasingly recognized within national legal frameworks, represents a paradigm shift in how development projects and resource extraction initiatives engage with Indigenous communities. It mandates that Indigenous peoples have the authority to decide whether or not a project affecting their lands, resources, or cultural heritage proceeds. This decision must be freely given, based on full understanding of the project’s implications, and made without coercion or undue influence. Consultation, on the other hand, is a much broader term encompassing various forms of engagement between governments, corporations, and Indigenous communities. It can range from simple information-sharing to more extensive dialogue and negotiation, but it doesn’t inherently guarantee Indigenous consent. UNDRIP is neither a convention nor a treaty. It is not legally binding unless it is adopted into domestic legislation. Few jurisdictions have adopted UNDRIP as national law, like Canada, and they’re currently working to align their internal laws with it, developing regulatory requirements to strengthen the ‘duty to consult and accommodate’. Canadian courts are using UNDRIP to interpret their decisions. In certain provinces, such as British Columbia (BC), we are seeing that Indigenous Nations are signing consent-based agreements with BC to actively participate in environmental assessment reviews that will likely impact their traditional territories and rights, and to provide their consent before they can be approved. We are seeing a shift from the duty to consult and accommodate to a consent-building approach between mining operators and Indigenous Nations. Indigenous participation in projects has evolved from a passive information sharing to an active participation in the management of impacts and benefits. Practices such as the negotiation and signing of Relationship Agreements/Impact and Benefit Agreements, Indigenous Participation in employment, training, contracting and community investment, Indigenous Partnerships through equity participation and benefit-sharing arrangements, and/or the establishment of Indigenous Monitoring and Environmental Committees to oversee the lifecycle of mining projects have become the new way to access land, provide certainty and create shared value for all the involved parties. In Latin America and the Caribbean, engagement and consultation with Indigenous Peoples is driven by the ILO Convention #169 which has been ratified by most countries and incorporated into national laws, aiming to protect Indigenous rights to land, culture and self-determination. The application of UNDRIP have been marked by varying degrees of implementation and acceptance, mainly being used by national and regional courts as a legal benchmark on Indigenous rights. Countries like Bolivia, Colombia and Mexico have led the trend of applying UNDRIP mainly through courts interpretations between 2007 and 2023 (Toledo, 2023). Although legal frameworks are progressive, significant implementation gaps persist, particularly regarding extractive projects on ancestral lands, with challenges including power imbalances, and ineffective participation and weak FPIC. However, there is a growing, though uneven, recognition of the need for culturally appropriate, respectful, and relationship-based engagement rather than mere check-thebox exercises, being led primarily by mining global operators, investors and Indigenous Nations. 3.EMERGING TRENDS AND BEST PRACTICES Emerging trends and best practices vary depending on the accountable party. From governments, countries like Canada have embarked on a Reconciliation Process aimed at rebuilding relationships between Indigenous Peoples and non-Indigenous Peoples. Efforts are being made to raise awareness and redress the impacts of colonization, assimilation policies, social costs and injustices of residential schools. In 2008, a Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) was established and spent six years travelling across Canada to hear from residential school survivors, Indigenous Nations, groups and organizations. A final TRC report was issued and includes 94 “Calls to Action” for governments and the private sector to implement. Call to Action #92 requires businesses to:
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