Il sumak kawsay: da cosmovisione indigena a principio costituzionale in Ecuador

The Ecuadorian Constitution of 2008 has welcomed between its principles and rights concepts from the indigenous weltanschaung, such as sumak kawsay and pacha mama. The author tries to show how the constitutional nature of these concepts represents the innovative element of the Andean neoconstitutionalism, which is characterized by founding a inter-cultural, multi-national, social, solidal, communitarian, ecological, participatory and pluralistic State. Although many of these concepts are not new for a European jurist, their combination and their intercultural interpretation suggest a need to update the traditional categories of classification, particularly regarding the form of State. Ecuador, but to a different extent also other countries of the Andean area, is one of the first true experiences in the continent of a decolonized state.