Abstract:
Does legal reform mean social change? After the approval of the Constitution of 2008, the peoples of Ecuador adopted a new model of state: the Plurinational State. The Plurinational State was a claim of the indigenous peoples’ movement to overcome the nation-state paradigm that undertakes the ethnic and historic diversity of Ecuador.
A Plurinational State starts with the principle that societies are multicultural and that different political groups or nations coexist in the same territory under the same state sovereignty and in equal conditions as a matter of respecting the right of self-determination. Nations have the same weight in a society and, therefore, must have a seat at the state’s decision-making table. Furthermore, the 2008 Ecuadorian Constitution defines four mechanisms of the Plurinational State: (i) protection of the entire community’s territory ; (ii) self-government; (iii) application of each nation’s customary laws; and, (iv) the right to be consulted on an informed basis and free of coercion. Finally, the Plurinational State seeks to accomplish a double goal: first, to protect and respect cultural diversity; and, second, to ensure that indigenous nations participate in the state’s decisions that will affect their territories or culture.