Ecuador passed a revolutionary constitution that granted rights to nature. Months have passed and there have been no repercussions on both the mainstream media and in western world societies on a breakthrough law as important as the human rights.
In 1948, the UN defined our rights as humans. Sixty years later, in September 2008, Ecuador was the first country to give rights to nature in the constitution.
The constitution included an article that granted nature the right to “exist, persist, maintain and regenerate its vital cycles, structure, functions and its processes in evolution” and granted legal standing to any person to defend this in court.
There were five articles acknowledging rights said to be possessed by nature, or “Pachamama,” a goddess revered by indigenous Andean peoples, whose name roughly translates as “Mother Earth.”
Chapter: Rights for Nature
Art. 1. Nature or Pachamama, where life is reproduced and exists, has the right to exist, persist, maintain and regenerate its vital cycles, structure, functions and its processes in evolution.
Every person, people, community or nationality, will be able to demand the recognition of rights for nature before public institutions. The application and interpretation of these rights will follow the related principles established in the Constitution.
Art. 2. Nature has the right to an integral restoration. This integral restoration is independent of the obligation of natural and juridical persons or the State to indemnify the people and the collectives that depend on the natural systems.
In case of severe or permanent environmental impact, including that caused by the exploitation of non renewable natural resources, the State will establish the most efficient mechanisms for restoration, and will adopt adequate measures to eliminate or mitigate the harmful environmental consequences.
Art. 3. The State will motivate natural and juridical persons as well as collectives to protect nature; it will promote respect towards all the elements that form an ecosystem.
Art. 4. The State will apply precaution and restriction measures in all the activities that can lead to the extinction of species, the destruction of the ecosystems or the permanent alteration of the natural cycles.
The introduction of organisms and organic and inorganic material that can alter the national genetic heritage in a definitive way is prohibited.
Art. 5. The persons, people, communities and nationalities will have the right to benefit from the environment and from natural wealth that will allow wellbeing.
The environmental services cannot be appropriated; their production, provision, use and exploitation, will be regulated by the State.
The concept that nature itself can possess rights runs counter to the classical liberal theories of government that hold sway throughout much of the West and view rights as something that only individual human beings possess.
Ecuador has reminded us of the fundamental truth that the earth came before us and will very likely outlast us.
This nation has showed us how to reorganize our political institutions in a way that may just come in time to give civilization a chance of maintaining nature and giving it its own right for preservation. Hopefully this constitution will find echoes all over the planet, where we all breathe the oxygen provided by Pachamama.
More Info:
http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/09/29/ecuador-constitution-grants-nature-rights/
http://www.pachamama.org
http://dissidentvoice.org/2008/09/ecuadors-constitution-gives-rights-to-nature/
Source: Boom festival
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C'est HALLUCINANT O_O et tout à fait visionnaire...
RépondreSupprimerpar contre, je ne vois pas bien pourquoi le terme "nature" te dérange?
c'est les dérives faciles du concept de "mère nature" qui m'agacent. La nature serais qqch de bon et d'universel, blabla tyrannique sur la normalité de la nature etc... Par exemple quel place pour l'homosexualité dans une concept dur de nature. Y'avais un bon article sur le cabinet de subversion mais c'est fermé maintenant je crois. je développe ça en live si tu veux à l'écrit j'ai un peu la flemme
RépondreSupprimerOki, je vois ce que tu veux dire...
RépondreSupprimerMais je pense que ce genre d'interpretation est aussi falacieuse que le darwinisme justifiant le nazisme.
Pour ton exemple, à toute personne me sortant l'argument "l'homosexualité c'est contre la nature", je réponds "les singes mâles s'amusent fréquemment entre eux, les punaises ont en moyenne 50% de relation homosexuelles et nous avons eu un coq homo qui voulait à tout prix monter sur l'autre coq. Donc l'homosexualité est tout à fait naturel, que ce soit par plaisir, contraint par la frénésie reproductive ou tout simplement parce qu'on est né comme ça (je doute que le coq ai choisi...)".
Argumentaire testé et validé par le long silence qui s'en est suivi (et l'iceberg qui avait soudainement fait apparition au milieu de la conversation).