Victoria Tauli-Corpuz

Victoria Tauli-Corpuz is a Filipino development consultant and an international indigenous activist of Kankana-ey Igorot ethnicity. From 2014 to 2020, she served as the third United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

Background She graduated from the Philippine Science High School in Diliman, Quezon City in 1969. She completed her nursing degree at the UP College of Nursing, University of the Philippines Manila in 1976. and was the rapporteur for the Voluntary Fund for Indigenous Populations. As UN special rapporteur, she was tasked to investigate alleged violations of indigenous peoples rights and promote the implementation of international standards concerning the rights of indigenous peoples. She continued to hold her special rapporteur position until March 2020.

She is the indigenous and gender adviser to the Third World Network, a member of United Nations Development Programme Civil Society Organizations Advisory Committee and a member of the World Future Council.

Tauli-Corpuz is one of the founders of Indigenous Peoples Rights International and one of the current (2022) co-directors of the organisation.

Recognition Tauli-Corpuz was the first recipient of the Gabriela Silang Award, conferred in 2009 by the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples.

She was included in a list of ten people who had had important roles in scientific developments in 2021 compiled by the scientific journal Nature.

Nobel Prize nomination In February 2023, together with the Ecuadorian activist Juan Carlos Jintiach, Tauli-Corpuz was included in PRIO Director Henrik Urdal's shortlist of 2023 Nobel Peace Prize worthy candidates "for their non-violent struggle to protect and strengthen the rights of indigenous peoples."

Human Rights Watch senior researcher in Asia, Carlos Conde, welcomed her inclusion in the Nobel Peace Prize shortlist, saying that harassment and enforced disappearances of Indigenous activists in the Philippines continues under Duterte's successor, Bongbong Marcos. "Her nomination alone will highlight the severe plight they have been experiencing and should prompt action by the international community," he said.