This paper takes ecological debt as a measure of environmental injustice, and appraises this idea as a driving force for change in the international legal system. Environmental justice is understood here as a fair distribution of charges and benefits derived from using natural resources, in order to provide minimal welfare standards to all human beings, including future generations. Ecological debt measures this injustice, as an unfair and illegitimate distribution of benefits and burdens within the social metabolism, including ecologically unequal exchange, as a disproportionate appropriation and impairment of common goods, such as the atmosphere. Structural features of the international system promote a lack of transparency, control and accountability of power, through a pro-growth and pro-freedom language. In theory, this discourse comes with the promise of compensation for ordinary people, but in fact it benefits only a few. Ecological debt, as a symptom of the pervasive injustice of the current balance of power, demands an equivalent response, unravelling and deconstructing real power behind the imagery of equally sovereign states. It claims a counterhegemonic agenda aiming at rebuilding international law from a pluralist, 'third world' or Southern perspective and improving the balance of power. Ecological debt should not only serve as a means of compensation, but as a conceptual definition of an unfair system of human relations, which needs change. It may also help to define the burdens to be assumed as costs for the change required in international relations, i.e. by promoting the constitutionalization of international law and providing appropriate protection to human beings under the paradigms of sustainability (not sustainable development) and equity. Key Words: environmental justice, ecological debt, international legal system Résumé Ce document prend la dette écologique comme une mesure de l'injustice environnementale, et évalue cette idée comme une force motrice pour le changement dans le système juridique international. La justice environnementale est comprise ici comme une répartition équitable des charges et des avantages découlant de l'utilisation des ressources naturelles, dans le but de fournir des normes minimales de bien-être à l'humanité tout entière, y compris les générations futures. La dette écologique est une mesure de cette injustice, comme une distribution injuste et illégitime des avantages et des charges dans le métabolisme social. Il comprend l'échange écologiquement inégal, comme une appropriation disproportionnée et la dépréciation des biens communs, tels que l'atmosphère. Les caractéristiques structurelles du système international favorisent un manque de transparence, le contrôle et la responsabilité du pouvoir, par le biais d'un pro-croissance et la langue pro-liberté. En principe, ce discours est livré avec la promesse de compensation pour les gens 1 Prof. Jordi Jaria i Manzano, Tarragona Centre for Environmental Law Studies, Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Tarragona, Cat...

This is the story of an unequal legal battle. It's one that the communities affected by the operations of Texaco in Lago Agrio, Ecuador, have been holding for more than twenty years, to get compensation for damages to the environment, people's health and the ways of life of the local communities, first against Texaco, and after its absorption into Chevron, against this company. This is a litigation that perfectly illustrates three aspects: the conversion of the whole world into a single area of dispute with ramifications in the United States, Ecuador, the Netherlands, Argentina, Canada, and Brazil; the limitations of the current international legal system to the actions of big transnational companies; and finally the enormous inequalities of means between parties and the determination of Chevron, whatever the price, to take all necessary measures not to lose a litigation that is already iconic.

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