Legal challenges of mining in Ecuador: impact of constitutional regulations and the rights of nature

Abstract

This work focuses on analyzing the impact of Ecuadorian constitutional regulations on mining and its special connection with the rights of nature, as its main objective, based on current conditions, concepts, principles and lines of jurisprudence. To this purpose, a qualitative study has been carried out, using the methods of analysis-synthesis and normative exegesis in order to identify scientific articles from the last five years on the subject and the jurisprudential lines of the Constitutional Court of Ecuador from 2019 to date. In general, it is concluded that the Constitution of the Republic of Ecuador of 2008 recognizes the rights of nature as an autonomous entity and subject to legal protection against mining activity, which must be developed subject to principles of precaution, prevention, responsibility and effective reparation as part of a more biocentric vision of the legal scheme, although the jurisprudence of the Court does not yet detach itself from anthropocentric criteria in the approach to such rights