The Los Cedros Forest has Rights
Last week, the Ecuadorian Constitutional Court published its judgment in the case of the Los Cedros forest, a protected cloud forest of great biodiversity in the Andean mountains of Ecuador. This judgment revokes environmental permits previously granted to two mining concessions in the Bosque Protector Los Cedros reserve. The Court ruled that the mining permits in question had not only violated several constitutional rights of communities in the area but also – most remarkably – the rights of mother nature (Pacha Mama). It specifically granted these rights to the Los Cedros Reserve. But there is still some uncertainty regarding future applications of this unusual, non-anthropocentric legal standard set by the Court to protect the rights of mother nature.
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Ecuador’s Constitutional Landscape Towards COVID-19
Considering the political scenario, this article will highlight that the government's management of the pandemic has been ill-timed; it has not been holistic but rather aimed at providing temporary solutions without alleviating the underlying problems of the Ecuadorian population and that the control of the President's exceptional powers has been assumed mainly by the Constitutional Court of Ecuador and not by the legislature.
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The Virtues and Limits of Transformative Constitutionalism
On 4 March, the Ecuadorian Constitutional Court published a decision in the aftermath of nation-wide prison riots that had killed at least 79 people. This judgment underlines the key functions of a Court empowered with a transformative mandate in the face of systemic failures in public policy – but also the limits of its power to solve those failures.
Continue reading >>Ecuador – Constitutionalism and Covid-19
When referring to the rule of law and constitutionalism we must be extremely cautious: Ecuador was founded in 1830 after the dissolution of Great Colombia, and in just 190 years has adopted 20 constitutions. The current Ecuadorian Constitution dates from 2008. This means that the nation does not possess a strong constitutional tradition nor a culture of promotion of the rule of law. On the contrary, Ecuador has a long history of institutional breakdowns and coup d'états which were caused by political and economic crisis. However, these were nothing compared with the situation all Ecuadorians are currently facing.
Continue reading >>How Ecuador’s Constitutional Court is Keeping the Executive Accountable During the Pandemic
On 16 April 2020, the Ecuadorian Constitutional Court announced Decision No.1-20-EE/20, allowing it to monitor the impact of its previous judgments on the constitutionality of emergency powers granted to the President in the fight against Covid-19. This decision shows that a Constitutional Court can indeed play an essential role in a country’s response to a catastrophe, whose consequences are painfully obvious in Ecuador, one of the countries in Latin America worst hit by the pandemic.
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