Derechos bioculturales y ètica biocultural

hacia una aplicación integral

Abstract

In the last decade, biocultural rights have been utilized to grant legal personhood to the Whanganui River in New Zealand (2015) and the Atrato River in Colombia (2016). This has been achieved by establishing a direct connection between the worldviews of ethnic peoples and the ecosystems they inhabit. The theoretical construct of biocultural rights has been extensively analyzed from a legal perspective, demonstrating their effectiveness in incorporating the worldviews of local communities (indigenous, Afro-descendant, ethnic, etc.) into legal frameworks. However, their implementation in Colombia has not yielded the ambitious outcomes that were anticipated. This shortfall is largely attributed to the region’s challenging conditions of social injustice and armed conflicts. In this article, the theory of biocultural ethics and its theoretical framework of the 3Hs (Rozzi 2012) will be employed to analyze, clarify, and highlight relevant aspects in the application of biocultural rights.