Human Rights our Collective Responsibility Regarding the annual floods, the Respondent State has undertaken mitigation measures to limit the impact of the construction of the dam on the peoples' annual flood retreat agriculture by releasing controlled floods periodically. Due to the construction of the dam, the Respondent State contends that the people are being taught modern farming techniques and that irrigation from the dam will help improve the fanning practices of the affected communities. 230. With regard to the Kuraz, the Respondent State submits that no grazing land will be touched and that no one has been evicted from their land. Rather, the projects have paved the way for acquisition of private holding through the issuance of landholding certificates for each household resulting in land certificates been issued to 596 households in Selamago Woreda." The Respondent State submitted that, under the SNNPRS land law, priority is given to farmers and pastoralists before lands can be provided to private developers." The Respondent State submitted that there was ample state land that was used for the Kuraz Sugar project in the South Omo Zone80 and, as such, no land was expropriated.sl The Respondent State submitted that the Constitution and Proclamation 455/2005 on Expropriation of Land Holdings for Public Purposes and Payment of Compensation provide for the processes and conditions that have to be fulfilled for expropriate to take plan. 231. From the evidence before the Commission, there is no indication that the Omo peoples are opposed to or have withheld their consent to the darn and the Kuraz sugar projects. There is also no indication that the mitigation measures adopted by the Respondent State to ensure that the Omo peoples have access to irrigation and annual controlled flood are unreasonable, have led or will lead to a loss of their livelihoods. In their information update to the Commission submitted in 2021, the Complainants acknowledged that the Respondent State had implemented the controlled flood release but complained that the Respondent State had only done so once since the dam started operations in 2016. Regarding the Kuraz, the Complainants do not dispute that the lands upon which the Kuraz project has so far been implemented is state lands rather than indigenous territories. 232. It is for the Complainants to show that the Omo peoples have not freely disposed of their natural sources and wealth located within the indigenous lands. The «~\\ Union ~'''''\i¥) An Or~~aflof the African 50