After years of tense negotiations and legal wrangling over Indigenous land rights in southern Belize, the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) has delivered a procedural ruling that closes one chapter of the dispute but leaves the door open for future conflict if proposed legislation moves forward. The long-running saga first reached a landmark turning point in 2015, when the CCJ oversaw a binding Consent Order through which the Government of Belize formally acknowledged that Maya customary land tenure is a legally recognized system in hundreds of square kilometers of villages across the Toledo District. That historic agreement embedded Maya collective and individual land rights within Belize’s constitutional framework, and required the national government to collaborate directly with Maya communities to draft formal legislation that would codify and protect those long-ignored claims.