Constitutional law, ecosystems, and indigenous peoples in Colombia: biocultural rights and legal subjects

The 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 devel...

Full description

Autores:
Macpherson, Elizabeth
Torres Ventura, Julia
Clavijo-Ospina, Felipe
Tipo de recurso:
Article of journal
Fecha de publicación:
2020
Institución:
Universidad El Bosque
Repositorio:
Repositorio U. El Bosque
Idioma:
eng
OAI Identifier:
oai:repositorio.unbosque.edu.co:20.500.12495/4587
Acceso en línea:
http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12495/4587
Palabra clave:
Biocultural rights
Ecosystem rights
Legal personhood
Rights
openAccess
License
Acceso abierto
Description
Summary:The 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.