Decolonize or perpetuate: Realizing rights of nature through a critical property theory

Abstract This article discusses the legal and jurisdictional challenges to safeguarding Indigenous cultural property, understood as bioculture, and the extent to which colonialism influences the law, arguing that the current, arguing that the current legal system is inherently a colonial technology formed during the 1491 encounters era in the Americas and metastasized into contemporary society. The starting proposition is that a lack of safeguards is not the challenge, given the of institutionalization of the Rights of Nature framework, adopted and adapted by the Ecuadorian Constitution since 2008 (reaffirmed November 2025). The challenge is its implementation. The article attributes this operationalizing problem to the clash that arises when a Rights of Nature framework is adapted within a Western legal paradigm that upholds Western notions of “property” on Indigenous economy functionality of biocultural assets. We examine the Ecuador v. Tagaeri and Taromenane case, decided by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in 2025, to illustrate this tension. Because, in its material and abstract expressions, the understanding production of property echoes the colonial legacy of Indigenous dispossession, the article suggests that a critical view of “property” is necessary to complement the Rights of Nature framework to address implementation issues.