The Constitution of the Republic of Ecuador: Pachamama Has Rights

BERROS, MARÍA VALERIA

Arcadia

Rachel Carson Center and the European Society for Environmental History

Lugar: München; Año: 2015

Nature has recently been recognized as a subject rather than an object of rights in some Latin American countries. This is the case in Bolivia, on a legal level, and in Ecuador, on a constitutional level. This kind of recognition is relevant because, after decades of juridical, legal, and ethical debates about whether rights should be extended beyond human beings, today it is, at last, a reality. Although discussions about the juridical and moral status of nature, animals, plants, and inanimate aspects of nature are not yet over, this new legal system acknowledges that nature, known as Pachamama in the Quichua and Aimara indigenous languages, has rights.