Oil Extraction, Indigenous Peoples Living in Voluntary Isolation, and Genocide: The Case of the Tagaeri and Taromenane Peoples

Abstract

This Article utilizes the crime of genocide’s requisite elements to analyze the massacres of the Tagaeri and Taromenane Peoples (Tagaeri-Taromenane). The TagaeriTaromenane are Indigenous peoples living in voluntary isolation in the Ecuadorian Amazon who are endangered by the oil and timber industries and the expansion of peasant settlements in their territory. This Article first provides a brief history of the Tagaeri-Taromenane massacres and then discusses the “intent to destroy a group” element of the crime of genocide as enumerated in international human rights jurisprudence. In concluding, the authors propose that the oil industry’s public and private actors’ direct control over the events that led to the massacres could establish criminal liability for those actors.

Keywords: Genocide, Tagaeri,Taromenane, Indigenous peoples living in voluntary isolation, Ecuador, International Criminal Law

JEL Classification: K33