Constitutional Law, Ecosystems, and Indigenous Peoples in Colombia: Biocultural Rights and Legal Subjects

Elizabeth Macpherson,Julia Torres Ventura,Felipe Clavijo Ospina

doi:10.1017/s204710252000014x

Elizabeth Macpherson, Julia Torres Ventura + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1017/s204710252000014x

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Journal: Transnational Environmental Law	Publication Date: Jul 8, 2020
Citations: 42	License type: CC BY 4.0

Abstract

AbstractThe recognition of rivers and related ecosystems as legal persons or subjects is an emerging mechanism in transnational practice available to governments in seeking more effective and collaborative natural resource management, sometimes at the insistence of indigenous peoples. This approach is developing particularly quickly in Colombia, where legal rights for rivers and ecosystems are grasping onto, and evolving out of, constitutional human rights protections. This enables the development of a new type of constitutionalism of nature. Yet legal rights for rivers may obscure the rights of indigenous peoples and their role in resource ownership and governance. We argue that the Colombian river cases serve as a caution to courts and legislatures elsewhere to be mindful, in devising ecosystem rights, of the complex and interrelated rights, interests and tenures of indigenous peoples and local communities.

Highlights

We argue that the Colombian river cases serve as a caution to courts and legislatures elsewhere to be mindful, in devising ecosystem rights, of the complex and interrelated rights, interests and tenures of Indigenous peoples and local communities
Some might argue that legal person or legal subject models are useful tools available to Indigenous peoples in settling claims to natural resources.[2]
Several other courts and local or regional tribunals in Colombia have since handed down decisions that recognize ecosystems to be legal subjects, drawing on protections in Colombia’s Constitution within the framework of its Estado Social de Derecho.[6]

Summary

Introduction

The Colombian Supreme Court’s decision to recognize the Colombian Amazon as a legal subject, theoretically groundbreaking in its recognition of the rights of future generations, apparently ignores the rights of Indigenous peoples to their traditional territories and their key role in the management and protection of river ecosystems.

Results

Conclusion