Literature Review

Atrocity crimes are regarded as the most serious crimes against humankind (United Nations). Using the example of deforestation, this paper will review the benefits, or otherwise, of adding ecocide to the list of atrocity crimes. Ecocide is defined as the mass damage and/or destruction of the natural environment by human behavior. The official definition refers to unlawful or wanton acts that can result in damage that is either ‘severe,’ ‘widespread’ or ‘long-term.’ It is reviewed here in relation to deforestation for animal agriculture. Globally, it is estimated that farmland expansion accounts for 90% of deforestation (Food and Agriculture Organization for the United Nations, 2021). Crop growing and animal grazing are the main drivers of deforestation. The latter accounts for 40% of deforestation (Hussain, 2022). Put simply, large amounts of land are required to feed the billions of nonhuman animals killed each year for human consumption. This clearing of forests for animal agriculture results in increased greenhouse gas emissions which, in turn, has implications for climate change. Following Sharpston (2022), and the Wild Law Project (UK Environmental Law Association, 2009), we consider whether the principles of Earth Jurisprudence (rights for nature), alongside the crime of ecocide, can protect forests from agricultural expansion thereby reducing greenhouse gas emissions and protecting ecosystems from biodiversity loss.

The Rights of Nature concept as a new approach to rethink and reengage with environmental law calls for a transformation towards an ethos of interconnectedness between humans and nature. This approach gains increasing relevance as planet Earth grapples with pressing environmental challenges, water resources exploitation and declining aquatic ecosystems being one of those. Recognising the rights of nature and transforming the way the environment is governed involves a new understanding on what the law is and what is to be a subject of the law. This paper surveys the current legal landscape of the RoN in the freshwater and marine ecosystem in terms of legal recognition, key actors, governance structure and their implications to contemporary legal environmental paradigms and water governance discourse. Though exploratory, the findings of this study contribute to a deeper understanding of the evolving RoN framework and its implications for water and environmental governance.

In 2008, the new Ecuadorian Constitution became the first legal document to recognize Nature as having rights, legally concretizing Christopher’s Stone momentous 1972 invitation and Thomas Berry and Cormac Cullinan’s call to an Earth Jurisprudence. Over the ensuing decade, rights of Nature Constitutional, legislative and judicial initiatives arose in a growing number of jurisdictions, from Bolivia to India, from New Zealand to Colombia, marking the practical articulation of this novel legal theory as one of the fastest growing legal movements of the 21st century. Over such a relatively brief period of time, three phases can already be identified within the movement: after an initial focus on the acceptance of Nature as a right-holder, a shift occurred toward the identification of said right-holder as a legal person. Since such an identification was far from uncontroversial, and in response to numerous critiques advanced toward the use of categories of personhood inherited from the Roman legal tradition, the movement now inhabits a third phase, in which the focus becomes the creation of a novel category of personhood, tentatively called ‘environmental personhood’. Albeit still protean, the emergence of such a novel category nonetheless represents a fertile terrain for inter-jurisdictional and inter-normative dialogue around climate justice and the ethical obligations of global governance institutions. In a time of global climate-induced social uncertainty, could ‘environmental personhood’ emerge as a novel principle of international law?

The different theoretical constructions around the conceptualizations of Buen Vivir and decolonial feminisms have been the subject of fervent debate at the beginning of the governmental periods of Evo Morales in Bolivia (2006 - 2019) and Rafael Correa in Ecuador (2007 - 2017) when Constitutional Assemblies were installed to develop and approve the new Bolivian and Ecuadorian Constitutions. The Assemblies framed unprecedented dialogues of women's and feminists' movements with other political and social actors who, like them, wanted to see changes in the deeply colonial histories of their countries. This article analyses the way the Buen Vivir was translated to specific discourses depending on whether it was presented as an indigenous, modern or postmodern proposal and how these translations addressed (or not) women's and feminists' demands ranging from a radical depatriarchalizing process to the more conventional acknowledgment of their rights in the legal systems. These questions present a fundamental challenge because there is neither one discourse of the Buen Vivir nor of feminism, but rather different meanings are attached to them. Rather than deepening into a genealogical or epistemological study of these theoretical and political proposals, this paper explores the contradictions within and between these in the framework of the Constitutional Assemblies in Bolivia and Ecuador. It concludes that, although Buen Vivir and decolonial feminist approaches can be complementary, the conceptualizations of Buen Vivir must not be a horizon that postpones women's aspirations indefinitely but a daily reality supported by explicit State policies and actions.

This article considers the possibilities and limits of reimagining international development policy by taking the values, practices, and worldviews of Indigenous communities as its starting point. Drawing on ethnographic research in Guatemala, we contrast the development industry’s overwhelming focus on economic growth as the gold standard of well-being with the perspective of Maya-Achí groups, who insist that growth and modernization must not come at the expense of the ecology, food sovereignty, or Indigenous ways of life connected to the land. We argue that the Maya-Achi organizations with whom we collaborate offer a philosophy and practice better attuned to the urgency of the climate crisis than that of the dominant model of development. To bring the international development agenda in line with local climate action, we propose reconceiving Development as Buen Vivir—an Indigenous philosophy of good living. To do so, we propose three lines of action: (1) Increasing Funding for Indigenous-led climate action; (2) Re-conceptualizing development practices to align with Buen Vivir, and (3) Transforming social and economic policies.

This dissertation examines the achievements and limitations of indigenous-inspired state transformation towards a more participatory democracy. It takes as its case study the "process of change" (proceso de cambio) in Bolivia, which has been driven by a broad popular mobilisation since the beginning of the century and later led to a government programme of the Movement for Socialism (MAS, Movimiento al Socialismo) party, which won the 2005 elections. One of the most novel aspects of these transformations has undoubtedly been the inclusion of indigenous thought under the banner of the plurinational state. Plurinationality, understood as a "meta-concept" resulting from a cultural appropriation (Bonfil 1991), brings together a number of other demands, including the decolonisation of society, the establishment of territorial autonomy, the management of natural resources that respects the rights of Mother Earth (Pachamama), and a development model based on coexistence rather than profit maximisation. The plurinational state is understood as an ambitious political project that adapts and integrates a historical claim to territorial defence into a comprehensive model of state reform (Altmann 2016). Four key moments of this transformation are examined: the constitutionalisation of some indigenous proposals in Bolivia (2009) and Ecuador (2008), the struggle for direct representation (2011), the codification and application of the rights of Mother Earth (2010; 2012) and, finally, the awakening of an ecological conscience during the forest fire crisis in the Chiquitanía region of eastern Bolivia (2019). Each of these analyses was originally published separately in different peer-reviewed journals. Taken together, these cases capture the different perspectives and expectations of the relevant actors in this conflictive transformation of the state, and examine their participation in the process of implementation and transformation into public policy. In this context, the implementation of these new principles is understood as an ongoing process without a concrete end point, which involves overcoming numerous obstacles and considering different dimensions of change. This dissertation is guided by three theoretical perspectives (Chapter 1): From the perspective of legal anthropology, it is interested in how indigenous peoples transform the legal foundations of their countries through hybrid legal innovations (Bonilla Maldonado 2018). It also asks about the margins and limits of indigenous social agency, understood as "the capacity of ethnic actors to act on themselves and their environment" (Martínez Neira et al. 2019:3). Finally, it considers the symbolic effects of these changes and the ability of the state to create new narratives and promote certain ideas about indigenous peoples and delegitimise others (Hale 2007; Postero 2017). The study fills a gap in the literature with its aim to capture different dimensions of the practical implementation of new indigenous-inspired legal concepts and its emphasis on the symbolic dimensions.

Exploring ecofeminism and the popular and solidarity economy in Latin America makes visible the participation of women in the rural sector and their contributions to the economy of the state. Women represent 30% of the financial system, contribute to 15% of Gross Domestic Product and receive 49.7% of the credits allocated to the productive sector. In the face of mining extractivism and the encroachment of transnational companies encouraged by neoliberal and extractivist governments, women in Latin America stand against these practices. These companies invade ancestral territories and displace native peoples from their connection with Mother Earth or Pachamama. This chapter uses a descriptive qualitative analysis to examine ecofeminism in Latin America and the struggle of the women of Abya Yala in the care of water and agroecological production. These movements focus on sustaining the popular solidarity economy and the Buen Vivir (Good Living) as forms of resistance to the capitalist and patriarchal system.

In the framework of environmental deterioration marked by the so-called capitalist development and its implications for a serious threat to life, based on the scientific reports on the biosphere, it is essential to encourage humanity to listen attentively to the native communities. Throughout the earth, they struggle from the resistance of their epistemologies and through the ancestral territories and invite the planetary society to be attentive and in co-responsibility with other species and to opt promptly on mitigations of development and its results, such as the so-called climate change.

World Social Work Day (WSWD), observed on the third Tuesday of March, honours social workers. It is an occasion to reaffirm dedication to well-being programs, universal access and equity, and a fair go for all who receive services from the profession. The concept of harmonious coexistence between communities and nature, as well as the collaboration of social workers and local citizens to create peaceful communities, is critical for a sustainable future. This editorial is a self-congratulatory piece on the identification of the correct theme for future social work, but it also provides a brief explanation of what the 'Buen Vivir': The Good Life theme entails for modern social work practice.

The present investigation constitutes a review and reflection of the new behaviors of political organization and alternative laws that are developing in South American countries, in which we expose various perspectives from which we carry out the theoretical description of old and new concepts, socio-historical and culture-politics. Concerning the theories and ideas built to interpret them, these force us to focus our gaze on those institutions, discourses, strategies, and procedures that were traditionally part of the understanding of what politics and law were. This relation is why, in the face of disenchantment or loss of faith in politics, in our opinion, explanations cannot continue to be constructed that insist on the distances between rulers and the governed, on the crisis of institutions, or the triumph of individualism, in the current era.Therefore, it is necessary to reflect on how technological advancement can lead to a false premise about the ease of political marketing and the impact it has had in Ecuador in recent years, including the application of technology and the design of propaganda as a resource to reach the population and position itself as a political brand.

The different theoretical constructions around the conceptualizations of Buen Vivir and decolonial feminisms have been the subject of fervent debate at the beginning of the governmental periods of Evo Morales in Bolivia (2006 - 2019) and Rafael Correa in Ecuador (2007 - 2017) when Constitutional Assemblies were installed to develop and approve the new Bolivian and Ecuadorian Constitutions. The Assemblies framed unprecedented dialogues of women’s and feminists’ movements with other political and social actors who, like them, wanted to see changes in the deeply colonial histories of their countries. This article analyses the way the Buen Vivir was translated to specific discourses depending on whether it was presented as an indigenous, modern or postmodern proposal and how these translations addressed (or not) women‘s and feminists’ demands ranging from a radical depatriarchalizing process to the more conventional acknowledgment of their rights in the legal systems. These questions present a fundamental challenge because there is neither one discourse of the Buen Vivir nor of feminism, but rather different meanings are attached to them. Rather than deepening into a genealogical or epistemological study of these theoretical and political proposals, this paper explores the contradictions within and between these in the framework of the Constitutional Assemblies in Bolivia and Ecuador. It concludes that, although Buen Vivir and decolonial feminist approaches can be complementary, the conceptualizations of Buen Vivir must not be a horizon that postpones women’s aspirations indefinitely but a daily reality supported by explicit State policies and actions.

This chapter presents the 17 United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) agreed upon, in 2015, by 195 nations. The objectives combine biosphere, social and economic goals. The argument in this chapter is that the SDG logic is strictly modern, since it has as one of its premises that economic growth (SDG8) is necessary for sustainable development. Since economic growth has historical trade-offs and contradictions with social-oriented and nature-oriented goals, a number of post-development alternatives have emerged from that premise. Here, I examine alternatives emerging in the Global South and the Global North that challenge the sustainable development view. Recent definition of objectives, goals and lessons by these distinct worldviews allowed for a comparison between them and the SDG. This analysis reveals (1) the SDG has gaps related to cultural diversity and to inner dimensions of sustainability and (2) there is more complementarity and synergy between the distinct worldviews than there are trade-offs, although existing trade-offs are substantial. Further dialogue between distinct worldviews will be key to fostering a future state of planetary well-being that allows for the healthy and peaceful coexistence of the various ‘universes’ that inhabit our planet.