Environmental prior consultation of parties: a new paradigm in ecocentric protection

Abstract

Colombia is a social and democratic state of law, with a constitutional tradition of respect for subjects through legal protection. Its Political Constitution proposes to make the general interest prevalent over the individual. In this sense, the normative advances are in a relevant way in the evolutionary social conditions. Under this theory, the Constitution of 1991 came to recognize the importance of the environment in a constitutional figure considered according to the national and international environmental doctrine as essential, under the parameters established in sustainable development. This legal tradition highlights the importance of protecting and caring for natural resources and the environment for the country. According to the pillars of environmental sustainability, this premise allows promptly establishing that human beings are the honest administrators of resources, but that they are a fundamental part of law subjects. The premise evolves not of administrator but ancestrally as an essential part of this environmental relationship. For these reasons, jurisprudence carries out a correct analysis. It recognizes the environment as a subject of rights, which changes the panorama regarding the management and fulfillment of sustainable development in the Colombian state.