At the end of the first decade of the millennium, Bolivia and Ecuador were the two Latin American countries that had undergone the deepest constitutional transformations during the course of political mobilisations carried out by indigenous movements. Their constitutions contain the embryos of a paradigmatic transformation of modern law and the state, putting an end to the centuries-old abyssal line haunting their social, cultural and political life. In this chapter, I focus on the legal judicial systems as they navigated these often turbulent processes, in which recognition of the existence and legitimacy of indigenous justice acquired a new political significance. It was not just a matter of recognition of the country’s cultural diversity or an expedient to allow remote local communities to resolve minor conflicts within their own sphere, thus guaranteeing the social peace which the state could not safeguard under any circumstances due to a lack of material and human resources. It was rather about conceiving of indigenous justice as an important part of a political project with a decolonising and anti-capitalist mission, a second political independence that might finally break with the Eurocentric abyssal line that has conditioned development processes in the last two hundred years. I analyse the vicissitudes of this process showing the limitations of the envisaged interruption of the modern colonial state and of modern Eurocentric law.

This chapter looks at guardianship of nature in three traditions of the Global South: from Latin American Buen Vivir (Good Living) derived from Native American traditions to Asian Buddhism in gross national happiness (GNH), and African ubuntu (collective) thought. Buen Vivir and Mother Earth as chief principle of the law, in the Ecuadorian constitution and policies, lead to rights of nature and a modest biocentric jurisprudence. Buddhist Happiness functions as chief principle of the law in the Bhutanese Constitution, with as yet no jurisprudence. This includes guardianship of nature as constitutional duty, whereby citizens can seek redress in court if the state neglects this duty. The rights of future generations in the South African Constitution, are part of the ‘people’ concept in Ubuntu, in which ‘mutual aid’ (in the community of life) functions as chief principle of the law. GNH and ubuntu are in between bio and anthropocentric with the potential of giving rights to nature.