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Bolivia and Ecuador passed through a constituent process in 2008-2009. Both Constitutions proclaimed the State as intercultural and plurinational, and legal pluralism was recognized. Indigenous communities had been working on these subjects for years, thinking that those concepts could be useful to create a more inclusive society, where all cosmovisions could participate in equal terms in the construction of a new form of State; where social conflict could be managed by intercultural justice; where different concepts of justice could respectfully co-exist. More than a decade has passed since then. In constitutional terms, it is not such a long time. However, the aim of the article is to test weaknesses and strengths of this new approach, through the analysis of national constitutional case-law. The comparison will be extended to Colombia, because there is a strong cross-fertilization between these three Andean countries. In fact, even if the Colombia Constitution does not mention interculturality among the principles to be applied to cultural issues, the Court has since long been developing a case-law on legal pluralism. Finally, some recent cases from the Interamerican Court of Human Rights (ICHR) will also be considered, as the Court is contributing to build a doctrine on interculturality in critical perspective, in defense of indigenous people’s rights.

Comparative Constitutional Justice adopts an innovative approach to constitutional justice. From a methodological perspective, it assumes that it is impossible to apply an absolute criterion of classification, which depends on the purposes comparative scholars aim to achieve when delivering their own taxonomies. A broad definition of constitutional justice is adopted, which revolves around the following taxonomy: 1) the legality of norms, 2) the conformity of actors’ behaviours with the distribution of sovereign powers and 3) the compliance with international covenants on human rights. This tripartite classification complements a further criterion based on the graduation in the intensity of this review. This indeed ranges from a minimum scrutiny limited to legislation (‘nomocratic review’) to a maximum scrutiny encompassing all state activities (‘pantocratic review’). The proposed classification will provide readers with a critical toolbox when it comes to examining the pluralism which characterises the systems of constitutional adjudication around the world.

the article starts from a critical analysis of the concept of sustainable development. Through a diachronic reconstruction of the use of this concept in the most important international documents about climate change and environmental protection, the author underlines its oxymoronic nature. Nevertheless, the UN are also dedicating some minor efforts in supporting a change in the global epistemological paradigm, through the creation of the Harmony with Nature Programme (HwN), whose aims are described in more details. Finally, the last part of the article is dedicated to the analysis of some communitarian legal instruments of land management, still used in many parts of Europe, like “partecipanza” or “collective meadows and fields”. In her conclusions, the author suggests that rediscovering our chtonic traditions, rooted in a balanced relationship between natural resources exploitation and respect for the natural process of regeneration is the core idea of true sustainability, the ultimate concept that we have to free from the strings of economic growth.

Gli autori introducono un numero monografico relativo al ruolo del diritto consuetudinario negli ordinamenti giuridici moderni

In the Western legal tradition, land and natural resources have always been considered as goods, the primary object of the right of property. Instead, for the Andean indigenous cosmovision, the relationship between Nature and Mankind has always been different: not of dominion, but of respect, harmony and co-living. This ancestral worldview has recently influenced the national legal systems of some Latin American countries, producing interesting consequences: lands, rivers, hills, plants… are not considered objects anymore, but subjects of rights, that could stand for their rights in courts. The article explores this recent legal pattern and its potentiality to circulate outside the chthonic legal tradition, for instance in Europe, where other formants could play a role in reconsidering the legal basis of the Western legal family.

L'autore introduce una sezione di casi e questioni relativi al concetto di interculturalismo e al suo uso nelle scienze giuridiche This short foreword describes the incipient rise of interest in legal studies for the concept of interculturalism, through the analysis of relevant literature. The legal approach to this subject-matter is compared with the much broader and structured use of the concept by other social sciences. It is finally suggested to consider interculturalism as an inherent methodology of comparison.

L'autore analizza i concetti di terra, territorio e proprietà in alcune Costituzioni latino-americane, evidenziando l'influenza delle cosmo-visioni indigene rispetto alla disciplina costituzionale di tali istituti

1. Introduzione – 2. Quali sono le principali s de e tensioni dello Stato plurinazionale boliviano? – 2.1. Decentralizzazione – 2.2. Democratizzazione – 2.3. Redistribuzione del reddito – 3. Come com- prendere lo Stato boliviano attraverso i diversi modelli teorici sullo Sta- to? – 4. Perché questa proposta ha un nuovo signi cato politico? – 4.1. Esercizio storico di resistenza – 4.2. Azioni comunitarie – 5. Conclusioni

The upsurge of environmental constitutionalism over the last decades has produced a substantial increase in the number of democratic Constitutions containing environmental rights and principles. Globally, out of 193 Constitutions of member States to the UN, 153 contain explicit references to the environment. These Constitutions reflect the growing sensitivity of the world and public concerns towards the protection of the environment. This is also a reaction to the insensitivity and indifference, mainly by the global North, towards the recognition of the serious and unavoidable problems posed by the Anthropocene, an era in which man is jeopardising the very foundations of life on this planet. If we look at the qualitative aspect, the evolution of ‘environmental constitutionalism’ appears evident, marking an upward trajectory: environmental protection has nowadays reached a central position in the world’s constitutional systems, with more stringent and, above all, structural forms of protection. The turning point for this evolution was marked during the first decade of the new millennium, with substantial improvements of the quality of environmental protection in some contemporary Constitutions. In these texts, the relation between man and the environment is considered as the foundation of the constitutional order and a basic element of the social pact, thus pervading the entire State structure. For example, in the recent Constitutions of Ecuador and Bolivia (but also in some other Asian and African texts), the relationship between man and nature becomes the focal key to reading the whole constitutional order. This also marks a paradigm shift towards the development of a Constitutionalism for the Anthropecene that requires the recognition of environmental values and interests as absolute priorities for the contemporary constitutional systems worldwide.

Since the ’70s, as a response to the lack of effectiveness, national legal systems initiated the path towards the constitutional recognition of the environment. In reference to the legal efforts in trying to cope with environmental issues, the basic question is whether constitutions matter and to what extent environmental constitutionalism is a “different species” or a genetic and physiological variant of constitutionalism, thus deserving an autonomous epistemological space or demanding for a proper role within already existing theoretical patterns. Starting from the aforementioned introductory assumptions, this essay deals with the first international community’s step towards the establishment of a proper legal framework for environmental matters, to later outline the body of international environmental principles that still nowadays represent the backbone of environmental law. Thus, the analysis critically addresses theories about contemporary forms of constitutionalism, then focusing on environmental constitutionalism and the different approaches that scholarly debates could assume in reference to the constitutionalization of the environment.