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12 J. Hum. Rts. & Env't. 1 (2021)

handle is hein.journals/jhre12 and id is 1 raw text is: Journal of Human Rights and the Environment, Vol. 12 No. 1, March 2021, pp. 1-4 Editorial Painful excavations: extractivism, dispossession, rights and resistance This edition of the Journal of Human Rights and the Environment offers a multi- disciplinary - and at times deeply visceral - encounter with painfully familiar arcs and dynamics of eco-injustice. It presents an enriching, sustained and at times deeply moving set of reflections on the juridical constitution of agency and ethical significance and the systematic denial of both - often in service of extractivism. Themes emerging include the dense imbri- cation of extractivism and well-honed practices of colonial and neo-colonial dispos- session, including examination of the multiple layers of such dispossession: force; fraud; legal fiat; legal failure; epistemic exclusion; the eco-violative implications of the ontological cleavage grounding juridical hierarchies of being and value. At the same time, the articles also offer accounts of modes of resistance. Some draw on rights and legislative opportunities as modes of (albeit compromised and complex) resistance, while others draw on arts practices and interdisciplinary explorations of mining, expulsions and grief. A relatively consistent theme in many of the contributions is the marginalization - and in some cases the outright denial - of Indigenous agency and/or the exclusion of commu- nity voices and concerns. Erin Fitz-Henry, in 'Distribution without representation? Beyond the rights of nature in the southern Ecuadorian highlands' records the systemic exclusion of affected communities in Ecuador from decision-making processes. These processes, she argues, are monopolized by state ministries - but in response there is a promising proliferation of new forms of resistance in the form of litigant claim-making practices and demands for representation. Ecuador might have the most biocentric con- stitution in the world, Fitz-Henry notes, but it has intensifying levels of national invest- ment in extractive development projects, and it is precisely this intensification that has driven affected frontline communities to seek participation in decision-making processes. Drawing on her ethnographic research concerning the Rfo Blanco gold and silver mine in the southern highland province of Azuay, Fitz-Henry explores the ways in which envir- onmental rights are now being used to challenge decision-making monopolies. She argues that despite the much-lamented failure of rights-based approaches to displace extractivist imperatives, rights-based approaches, when deployed as part of wider social struggles for representation in decision-making processes, appear to possess the potential to generate change. 'Rights of nature', it seems, have potential, therefore, as mechanisms for representational justice. In 'The 2017 Inter-American Court's Advisory Opinion: changing the paradigm for international environmental law in the Anthropocene', Maria Antonia Tigre and Natalia Urzola also see signs in the Americas suggesting the emergence of new, resis- tive jurisprudential approaches. This time, it is the Inter-American Court of Human Rights that promises juridical innovation in search of eco-justice. In 2017, the Court © 2021 The Author Journal compilation © 2021 Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd The Lypiatts, 15 Lansdown Road, Cheltenham, Glos GL50 2JA, UK and The William Pratt House, 9 Dewey Court, Northampton MA 01060-3815, USA

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