Value-based ethical conceptions underlying Environmental Law training. A theoretical reflection on their inclusion in Undergraduate Programs in Chilean and Colombian Universities

Abstract

Chile and Colombia have modern environmental institutions. Chile, in particular, has established special courts with exclusive jurisdiction over environmental matters. Since their creation in 2012, the existing information regarding the training of lawyers who practice in these courts is limited. Whether these professional litigants had any value-based ethical training in this area of expertise to exercise in environmental litigation is yet to be studied and the same holds true for whether having such training has influenced or determined in any degree the results of environmental cases. the need for studies that address these issues is of utmost importance in an area where the power for decision-making has a great social and economic impact for the country. In the case of Colombia, a country that has implemented a model of environmental institutions with high citizen control, there are numerous procedural options and courts to operate against environmental damage. However, there is the need of greening the legislation and law, i.e. all the law-environment relations, which incorporates the values of respect and responsibility for, and solidarity with ecosystems. For this reason, the Chilean and Colombian environmental institutions are reviewed in order to draw the theoretical foundations that allow visualizing the needs that, beyond cultural, political and economic differences, imply rethinking the concept of university as an ethical basis and governing core of the peoples' future in the Latin American context under the paradigm of environmental sustainability, leading to an epistemological questioning of what is taught in universities so that we can then provide answers to questions such as: what value-based ethical conceptions underlie training in environmental law?, on the one hand; and what world view is promoted in university classrooms?, and what kind of science and conscience are environmental law students offered?, on the other one.