THE LEGAL PLURALISM OF THE NEW LATIN AMERICAN CONSTITUTIONALISM

Abstract

This article analyzes the development of legal pluralism and how its influence led to the formation of a new Latin American constitutionalism. The violent European colonization process imposed on the Latin American peoples produced disastrous consequences that persist to this day. However, given the reduction of state power, pluralism was able to provide a means of rescuing those peoples who were severely oppressed during the colonization process. The evolution of legal pluralism enabled a reconstruction of Latin America's legal, political, and social guidelines, resulting in a weakening of the old European constitutionalism that was fundamental to the drafting of the earlier Constitutions. This assertion is confirmed by the emergence of the Constitutions of Ecuador (2008) and Bolivia (2009).