The right to environmental and climate participation in Latin America: a comparative bottom-up approach

Maria Angelica’s current research project seeks to contribute to climate law and environmental comparative law scholarship by using process tracing analysis to understand how social movements have shaped the content of the right to environmental participation in Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru through the mobilization of formal and informal legal mechanisms, known as popular or mining consultations, to oppose extractivist projects in their territories. Inspired by decolonial approaches to comparative law, this research questions the existence of fixed legal functions and, instead, argues that the content and use of the law is constantly being disputed. When studying comparatively the right to environmental participation, these case studies show that focusing our analysis on the norms and judicial decisions that have established the content of this right can only give us a partial account of its work. On the contrary, by shifting the lens towards grassroots usages of the law, we can understand why communities have actively decided not to rely on traditional mechanism of environmental participation, such as the ones contained in the environmental impact assessment process, and have turned instead towards direct democratic mechanisms as a way to have a say and contest the decisions regarding the exploitation of natural resources in their territories.