Abstract

Humanity is currently facing a severe ecological crisis, marked by the indiscriminate exploitation of natural resources, such as the deforestation of the Amazon, whose protection largely depends on Indigenous populations. Their cosmocentric worldview challenges the anthropocentric perspective typical of Western legal culture, promoting ecocentric or biocentric approaches. Building on this context, this study adopts a comparative approach to examine how the Indigenous cosmovision and the ecocentric paradigm are implemented in Ecuador and Bolivia, drawing on Rodolfo Sacco’s theory of legal formants. By analysing the political, normative, and judicial formants, this work aims to verify the effective implementation and implications of the Indigenous cosmovision of buen vivir in Ecuador and Bolivia, also in light of the contradictions arising from the regulation of natural resource exploitation.

Keywords

Amazonian Jurisdiction Indigenous Rights Nature Rights Chthonic Legal Tradition Latin American New Constitutionalism