Contesting the national interest in Ecuador: the role of rights of nature in mining conflicts

Scholars have urged the examination of how Nature’s rights may link with other rights-claims to impact political struggles between local communities and central governments over decision-making authority. This article examines two court cases that were decided by Ecuador’s Constitutional Court in order to shed light on the ability of Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities in Ecuador to employ the rights of nature in their efforts to contest the approval of extractive projects. The article contends that conjunctions between nature’s rights, human rights and the precautionary principle have challenged three patterns of knowledge creation and use that have supported the primacy of the national interest. The first is the presumption of co-existence of Indigenous land uses and mining projects. The second is the state’s power to classify land based on the level of protection for which it is eligible. The third is the treatment of differentiated actors as equivalent stakeholders.