EcoWorldly

On Sunday Ecuadorians will vote to accept or reject a new constitution for their country. The constitution would make major changes to how the government functions. Among the constitution’s 444 articles, highlights include giving the government more control over the mining, oil, transportation, telecommunication, and banking industries, allowing the president to run immediately for re-election after his or her first-term, bestowing nature with legal rights, and giving individual citizens the ability to fight for nature’s rights legally in courts.

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Rafael Correa, the president of Ecuador, supports the constitution and now says he will resign from office if voters do not approve the new government charter. His opponents suggest that the new constitution would give him too much power, much like a dictator. An estimated nine million people are expected to vote on the proposal. A recent poll suggests that 56% of Ecuadorians support passage of the constitution.

While all of the proposed constitution’s changes would be significant if approved, a good portion of the international press’s attention has focused on the document’s unique stance toward giving nature legal rights. Ecuador would be the first country in the world to legally grant nature rights via its constitution. The L.A. Times writes the following:

It sounds like a stunt by the San Francisco City Council. But Ecuador is engaged in nothing less than an effort to redefine the relationship between human beings and the natural world…Ecuador is codifying this shift in sensibility. In some ways, this makes sense for a country whose cultural identity is almost indistinguishable from its regional geography — the Galapagos, the Amazon, the Sierra. How this new area of constitutional law will work, however, is another question. We aren’t ready to endorse such a step at home, or even abroad. But it’s intriguing. We’ll be watching Ecuador’s example.

The Guardian writes the following background that is quite illuminating as to why Ecuadorians have become so pro-nature:

The origins of this apparent legal tidal shift lie in Ecuador’s growing disillusionment with foreign multinationals. The country, which contains every South American ecosystem within its borders, which include the Galapagos Islands, has had disastrous collisions with multi-national companies. Many, from banana companies to natural gas extractors, have exploited its natural resources and left little but pollution and poverty in their wake.

Now it is in the grip of a bitter lawsuit against US oil giant Chevron, formerly Texaco, over its
alleged dumping of billions of gallons of crude oil and toxic waste waters into the Amazonian jungle over two decades.

It is described as the Amazonian Chernobyl, and 30,000 local people claim that up to 18m tonnes of oil was dumped into unlined pits over two decades, in defiance of international guidelines, and contaminating groundwater over an area of some 1,700 hectares (4,200 acres) and leading to a plethora of serious health problems for anyone living in the area. Chevron has denied the allegations. In April, a court-appointed expert announced in a report that, should Chevron lose, it would have to pay up to $16bn (£8.9bn) in damages.

A list of the five articles that would bestow rights to nature in Ecuador’s proposed constitution can be read on the Christian Science Monitor’s website.

What perhaps is most interesting to me is the idea that individuals will be able to file lawsuits on nature’s behalf. Imagine filing a lawsuit against a business that cuts down a segment of forest to build a huge parking that only is half-used because of poor planning. Is this the sort of lawsuit that Ecuador’s potential constitution would allow individuals to wage? When would private property be considered immune from such potential legal challenges?

Check back soon on Ecoworldly for an update on Ecuador’s historic vote.

Read More South American Environmental News on the Green Options Network:

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Photo Credit: Agencia Brasil via Wikimedia under a Creative Commons license

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