ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the legal, environmental and socio-political implications of Colombia’s Constitutional Court ruling T-622/16, which recognized the Atrato River as a subject of rights. This landmark decision, grounded in the concept of biocultural rights, legally enshrined the deep interconnection between the river and the Afro-Colombian and Indigenous communities that depend on it. The ruling mandates state action to protect and restore the river’s ecosystem, yet its implementation has faced significant challenges, including illegal mining, weak institutional coordination and persistent environmental degradation. Through field research and interviews, this chapter explores how local communities perceive the ruling as both an acknowledgement of historical injustices and an opportunity for greater environmental governance. Additionally, it assesses the legal and political strategies required to translate nature’s legal personhood into meaningful environmental and social outcomes. By situating the Atrato case within broader global trends in rights of nature jurisprudence, this chapter contributes to ongoing debates on the effectiveness of legal innovations in addressing ecological crises and protecting the rights of local communities.
