Ecuador and the Rights of Nature
Year: 2011
Type: preprint
Abstract: In this paper I review the articles of Ecuador's 2008 constitution that grant rights to nature itself. I discuss 1) the difficulties that arise when trying to inscribe nature itself into a country's constitutional writ, and how the disjunction between the articles in the constitution and interpretations that have come from legislators and pundits exemplify this problematic. I then analyze Jacques Ranciere's notion of politics and democracy in an effort to have a framework to address the disjunction between name and practice in politics (as a constitutive aspect). I conclude by attempting to show that although Ecuador's constitution is far from living up to the radicality that president Rafael Correa and pundits assert, inscribing universal nature into contract can, with a Rancierean lens, provide the possibility of a new environmental politics to happen (i.e., nature can now be contested in a new way by activist, given that it is written into, and protected by, the constitution).
Source: SSRN Electronic Journal
Author: Joshua Mousie
Language: English
Topic: Environmental law and policy
Subfield: Law
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2285282821