Maria Francesca Cavalcanti, Assistant Professor of Jurisprudence, Department of Public Law and Governance, Law School, Tilburg University.
ABSTRACT
In the Global South billions of people are experiencing the effects of the ecological crisis. As the prime victims of globalization’s failures, the indigenous people of Latin American have often endured the most unfair consequences of extractivist exploitation. The recognition of the rights of Nature has become a fundamental aspect of the Latin American constitutionalism, drawing valuable insights from indigenous cosmovisions regarding the relationship between human beings, social communities, and Nature. Despite the advancements of Environmental Constitutionalism, the practical implementation of these constitutional provisions has often fallen short. Analysing the case law of Ecuador and Colombia through the lens of comparative legal methodologies, this chapter aims to highlight how indigenous epistemologies and their ancestral practices can contribute to the development of new models of environmental sustainability and to assess the potential of new paradigms for the ecological crisis, emerging from the encounter of indigenous cosmovisions and environmental law.
