On February 18, 2025, the regulations for granting registration and legal personality to communes and communities, peoples, nationalities (the “CCPNs”) and granting legal status to non-profit organizations of peoples and nationalities (the “Regulations”) were published in the Official Gazette.
The purpose of the Regulations is to regulate the requirements and procedure for the registration and legal personality of CCPNs and their non-profit organizations, as holders of collective rights in accordance with the Constitution of the Republic (the “Constitution”) and International Law. The most relevant aspects of the Regulation are considered as follows:
- The rights of the CCPN are established: to request access from the State to technical assistance and training programs; social programs; access to information on plans, programs and projects; promote these plans, programs and projects. (art. 3)
- The CCPN have the following obligations: to comply with the Constitution and the law; to deliver to the Secretariat for the Management and Development of Peoples and Nationalities (the “SGDPN”) the documentation and information necessary for the procedures for registration and granting of legal personality; and be accountable to its members. (art. 4)
- The CCPN is defined:
- “[…] communes and communities are considered to be basic structures of political, social, economic and spiritual organization that integrate families of a given geographical area, linked by historical-cultural characteristics and common interests, as well as economic, social, cultural and/or environmental needs and potentialities, based on the principles of reciprocity, proportionality, complementarity and organizational horizontality.” (art. 10)
- “Nationalities are considered to be the people or set of millenary peoples, pre-existing and constitutive of the plurinational and intercultural Ecuadorian State, who define themselves as such, who have a common historical identity, language and culture, live in a given territory through its institutions and traditional forms of social, spiritual, economic, legal, political organization and exercise of authority.” (Art. 5)
- “Peoples are the millenary collectivities that pre-exist and constitute the plurinational and intercultural Ecuadorian State, made up of communes, communities, centers, enclosures, palenques and other forms of organization with their own cultural identities, governed by their own systems of organization, exercise and generation of authority.” (art. 6)
4. To be registered and granted legal personality, peoples and nationalities must submit (art. 9) the following:
a. Application signed by the authority of the people or nationality addressed to the SGDPN.
b. A historical-anthropological study that demonstrates evidence of the historical and cultural existence of the people or nationality since time immemorial, if applicable[1], which must be approved by the general assembly of the people or nationality and certified by its principal authority.
c. Agreement of government and coexistence – statute approved and drafted in their own language and in Spanish, which will regulate the following aspects, among others[2]:
- Denomination.
- Territorial scope.
- Objectives.
- Organizational structure.
- Individual and collective rights and obligations.
- Form of election of self-government.
- Attributions and duties.
- Manner and terms of calls to assemblies.
- Form and mechanisms of decision-making.
- Reform and improvement of the agreement of government and coexistence – statute.
d. Call to obtain the registration and legal personality of the people or nationality.
e. Act of self-definition and ratification that they are a people or nationality, which have existed historically since time immemorial, in which the will to register with the SGDPN is manifested.
f. List and original documents of registration or legalization of the indigenous, Afro-Ecuadorian or Montubia peoples, communes, communities or organizations that are part of the nationality or people, as appropriate.
g. Geographical reference of the location of the town or nationality and a document signed by the authorities of neighboring towns or nationalities (if any) certifying that there is no conflict of territorial boundaries.
h. List of members, citizenship card number of the members of the people’s or nationality’s own government system and photocopy.
5. To be registered and granted legal personality, communes and communities must meet the same requirements as peoples and nationalities, in addition to the following (art. 10):
- General registration of all persons (elderly, adults, children, men and women) by families, who are integrated as members of the commune or community, as a result of a community census previously carried out.
- Names, surnames, identity card numbers and signatures of the heads of families representing the families that are integrated as members of the commune or community and a photocopy. For the registration of communes or communities, a minimum of 30 heads of household will be presented in the case of the Amazon and 50 heads of household in the case of the Coast and Sierra.
6. The SGDPN also grants legal personality to organizations of natural and legal persons with a social and non-profit purpose, whose purpose is related to the scope of peoples and nationalities, for which they must submit the following (art. 12):
a. Call for the constitution of the organization.
b. Minutes of the constitutive general assembly of the organization in formation, signed by all the founding members, which will contain:
- Name of the organization.
- Names and surnames, nationality and identity card number of each of the founding members.
- General aims and objectives.
- Board of directors’ payroll.
Statutes approved by the general assembly.
c. The statutes must include the following, among others (art. 12):
- Name, scope of action and domicile.
- Territorial scope.
- Aims and objectives.
- Organizational structure.
- Rights and obligations of members.
- Form of election of authorities and duration of functions.
- Powers and duties of internal bodies.
- Social assets and resource management.
- The form and terms of convening the general assemblies.
- Quorum for the installation of the general assemblies and the decision-making quorum.
7. The Regulations establish the administrative procedure for the registration and granting of legal status to CCPNs and non-profit organizations, which includes the possibility of filing oppositions by other bodies that feel affected. The SGDPN will review that the documentation is in accordance with the requirements of the Regulations, the Constitution and the Law, issuing a report, and if it does not meet the requirements, a period of 10 days will be given for the necessary to be corrected (art. 13).
8. It also includes a procedure for reforming and improving the statutes of the CCPN and non-profit organizations, for which a minute of the organization’s assembly is required (arts. 14 and 15).
9. The Regulations provide a procedure for the registration and updating of the directive of CCPNs and non-profit organizations and the inclusion and exclusion of their members. For the CCPN, the updated registry of families that make up the organization must also be attached. (arts. 16 and 17)
The general and transitional provisions provide as follows:
- Within 2 months, CCPNs and nonprofits must register their directives if they have not done so in the last 2 years.
- The procedures entered before the entry into force of the Regulation must be processed in accordance with the provisions of agreement number SGDPN-2022-001 of August 31, 2022, which contains the Regulations to Grant Legal Personality and Registration to Ancestral Communes, Communities, Peoples, Nationalities and Non-Profit Organizations of Peoples and Nationalities, published in the Second Supplement to the Official Gazette number 154 of September 22, 2022.
- The aforementioned agreement number SGDPN-2022-001, its amendments and any previous regulations that contradict the Regulations are repealed.
This bulletin contains a summary of legal developments of interest, and therefore cannot be considered as provided advice. If you have any questions, please contact the AVL Abogados team.
[1] It is also indicated: “Report of the chronicles, historical documents, sociological, anthropological and archaeological studies, judicial documents of the colony, among others.”
[2] It also states: “The Agreement on Government and Coexistence – Statute, of peoples and nationalities, shall be structured in accordance with the right to self-determination guaranteed in the Constitution of the Republic of Ecuador, jurisprudence of the Constitutional Court and international instruments duly ratified by the Ecuadorian State.”
