The dispute over the meaning of nature as a subject of rights in Ecuador

Abstract

The present research work is developed in the need to elucidate the real exercise of the rights of Nature in the field of the jurisprudence of the Constitutional Court of Ecuador between 2019 - 2022. The article aims to show the material advances to conceive nature as a subject of rights and therefore jurisdictional and constitutional protection. The method used is critical analytical, the approach is qualitative, and the jurisprudential-legal mode. The main results of the analysis conclude that the jurisprudence of the Constitutional Court has said that nature is a living being and therefore has an intrinsic value that goes beyond the use it means to the human being. In the conclusions, it is established that despite the tension that exists between Nature and economic development caused by extractivism as a model that is based on the exploitation of natural elements converted into commercial resources, the rights of Nature emerge as a response to a civilizing crisis that threatens to destroy everything. In this sense, the role of jurisprudence and standards on the rights of Nature allows for a more complete and material understanding of the subject.