Juridical protection of the rights of nature is steadily emerging in several legal systems and in public discourse. Building on a recent publication in Transnational Environmental Law in which we interrogated Ecuador’s constitutional experiment with the rights of nature, we critically reflect in this contribution on Bolivia’s legal regime providing for the rights of Mother Earth. We do so, first, by sketching the juridical-political context within which these statutes were drafted and adopted, and then by analyzing the relevant constitutional provisions that provide the basis for the laws of Mother Earth. The third part forms the bulk of the discussion and details the background and the most relevant provisions of Bolivian statutes with a view to enabling a deeper critique in Part 4, in which we critically evaluate both the symbolic and the theoretical significance of the statutes as well as concerns related to their practical implementation. Insofar as the rights of nature paradigm has now become a truly global debate and a consideration in transnational comparative legal borrowing practices, our analysis aims to reveal the Bolivian experience, which could be instructive for civil society groups, academics, politicians and legislatures in a transnational setting.

Today, numerous constitutions provide for a rights-based approach to environmental protection. Based as they are on an instrumentalist rationality that seeks to promote human entitlements to nature, the majority of these rights remain anthropocentric. Although there are growing calls within academic and activist circles to reorient rights alongside an ecocentric ontology, only one country to date has taken the bold step to bestow rights on nature in its constitution. The Ecuadorian Constitution of 2008 announces the transition from a juridical anthropocentric orientation to an ecocentric position by recognizing enforceable rights of nature. This article critically reflects on the legal significance of granting rights to nature, with specific reference to Ecuador’s constitutional experiment. It first provides a contextual description of rights in an attempt to illustrate their anthropogenic genesis, and then explores the notion of environmental rights. The following part traces the discourse that has developed over the years in relation to the rights of nature by revealing aspects of an ecocentric counter-narrative. The final part focuses specifically on the Ecuadorian constitutional regime and provides (i) a historical-contextual discussion of the events that led to the adoption of the rights of nature; (ii) an analysis of the constitutional provisions directly and indirectly related to the rights of nature; and (iii) a critical appraisal of whether those provisions, so far, measure up to the rhetoric of constitutional ecocentric rights of nature in that country.

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Los impactos del cambio climático afectan, directa e indirectamente, a los patrones de movilidad humana. De hecho, existen ya ejemplos de migraciones climáticas alrededor de todo el planeta. Las migraciones climáticas transfronterizas son especialmente relevantes, pues uno de los problemas más graves a los que se enfrentan las personas que huyen de sus países a causa del cambio climático, junto con otros motivos, es el escaso reconocimiento de su situación por el derecho internacional y, en consecuencia, la falta de protección jurídica. Ante este vacío, en el presente artículo se analiza la posible aplicación del derecho internacional de los derechos humanos, mediante dos formas, por un lado, como garantía básica de los derechos fundamentales de estas personas y, por otro, como fundamento para exigir la responsabilidad internacional de los Estados contaminantes, ante las violaciones de los derechos humanos que experimentan los migrantes climáticos.

In 2015, the UN adopted the 2030 Agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), a set of universal goals in key areas of action linked to sustainable development. The SDGs address not only highly relevant socioeconomic issues, but also pressing environmental challenges associated with the Anthropocene, such as climate change. The integration of a specific climate goal – SDG 13 – into the SDGs is paramount as climate change is a global and urgent threat compromising the realisation of all the SDGs. However, the SDGs’ focus on issues linked to the current economic growth pattern and development paradigm may prevent them from addressing the climate crisis and the inequalities and injustices associated with it. This paper attempts to establish the extent to which the SDGs promote progress towards achieving climate justice or if, on the contrary, they maintain the status-quo and continue to fuel the climate crisis while leaving millions behind. En 2015, las Naciones Unidas adoptaron la Agenda 2030 y los Objetivos de Desarrollo Sostenible (ODS), un conjunto de objetivos universales en áreas de acción esenciales vinculadas al desarrollo sostenible. Los ODS no sólo abordan cuestiones socioeconómicas de gran relevancia, sino también desafíos ambientales apremiantes asociados al Antropoceno, como el cambio climático. La integración de un objetivo climático específico –SDG 13– en los ODS es primordial ya que el cambio climático es una amenaza global y urgente que compromete la realización de todos los ODS. Sin embargo, el hecho de que los ODS se centren en cuestiones relacionadas con el actual patrón de crecimiento económico y el paradigma de desarrollo podría impedirles enfrentar la crisis climática y las desigualdades e injusticias asociadas con la misma. Este artículo intenta establecer hasta qué punto los ODS promueven el progreso hacia el logro de la justicia climática o si, por el contrario, mantienen el statu quo y siguen alimentando la crisis climática, al tiempo que dejan atrás a millones de personas.