A Bundle of Rights and Pachamama: Visa Kurki’s Theory of Legal Personhood

This book review analyzes Visa Kurki’s innovative theoretical construction of the legal person and compares it with how the concept is used in two Andean countries: Bolivia and Ecuador. Kurki offers an alternative view of the fundamental considerations regarding the legal person, a view mostly based on the work of W. N. Hohfeld. This review first highlights the key points in Kurki’s theory and then examines a possible challenge to his scheme through the legal systems of Bolivia and Ecuador, both of which recognize non-sentient beings as legal persons. When the concept of Pachamama (Mother Earth) is defined as a starting point, a whole new plethora of legal persons emerge (rivers, trees, lakes, etc.). This extremely radical view aims to rescue ways of life quite different than Western ones and to provide the population with robust mechanisms for the protection of Pachamama. It is also a theoretical “counter-offer” to Kurki’s view of personhood