Ecuador Organic Law: Water Resources, Uses, and Exploitation of Water (2014)

Summary

In August 2014, the National Assembly of Ecuador passed the Organic Law of Water Resources, Uses, and Exploitation of Water – which articulates the rights of nature in the context of water. The law considers application to “all waters, whether surface, ground or atmospheric, in the hydrological cycle with ecosystems”, as well as “coastal marine wetlands and coastal waters; and, water from seawater desalination.”

The stated purpose of the law is: “to guarantee the human right to water as well as to regulate and control the authorization, management, preservation, conservation, restoration, of water resources, use and development of water, comprehensive management and its recovery, in its different phases, forms and physical states, in order to guarantee the sumak kawsay or good living and the rights of nature established in the Constitution” (Articlle III). The law also states that water is exclusively public or communal and prohibits any agreements that “undermine conservation, sustainable water management, biodiversity, human health, the human right to water, food sovereignty, human rights and the rights of nature.”

Chapter III, Articles 64. of the law states that in water conservation, Nature or Pachamama has the right to: a) protection of its sources; b) maintenance of ecological flow as a guarantee of preservation of ecosystems and biodiversity; c) preservation of the natural water cycle; d) protection of watersheds and ecosystems from pollution; and e) restoration of ecosystems (19).

The law was first debated on November 10, 2009; again in May 2010 and June 2014; and finally on July 31, 2014 where it was subsequently approved.