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Mining has been an important industry in Colombia and there has been a push for expansion since the beginning of the 2000s. The granting of mining titles and planned large- scale mining projects have resulted in a social environmental conflicts in many parts of the country. In the years from 2013 to 2018, ten municipalities in Colombia carried out popular consultations—a kind of local referendum supported by the Colombian constitution, and with binding results—against extractive development in their territory. These consultations happened despite the national government opposing and trying to stop the use of the tool in extractive governance, arguing that they are illegal as only the state can make decisions on the use of the resources of subsoil. In this thesis I am looking at the development of the use of popular consultations in extractive governance in Colombia, and how local communities have organized themselves to employ the tool. I argue that the use of the tool managed to grow and reach legitimacy with the courts, and most notably the Constitutional Court, because of the country's strong courts and the history of the Constitutional Court of judicial activism, but that this was not sufficient for the use of popular consultations continue to be used in extractive governance. ; submittedVersion ; M-DS

By assuming a legal point of view, this article argues that the US-Andean Free Trade Agreement should not be approved by a popular referendum. According to legal doctrines and concepts, the free trade agreement is an international treaty; therefore, the people are not entitled to decide whether or not it should be approved. It is also posited that a popular referendum could become very problematic due to factors related to the educational levels of the Ecuadorian population and the political uses of the consultation. ; A partir de un punto de vista jurídico, el artículo presenta las razones por las cuales el Tratado de Libre Comercio entre Estados Unidos y los países andinos no debe ser sometido a una consulta popular. Un análisis conceptual apoya el argumento central del autor, quien sostiene que el TLC por ser un tratado internacional no debe ser objeto de aprobación o desaprobación por parte del pueblo, ya que éste carece de la facultad necesaria para tal fin. Finalmente Ortiz señala que más allá de lo jurídico, las condiciones de educación de la población ecuatoriana y el manejo político que se le puede dar a la consulta, son aspectos que problematizan el desarrollo de una consulta popular.

People's consultation and referendum are two mechanisms of direct democracy. In both cases, the population is invited to vote directly on one or more specific questions in order to express their will, and the results are measured by the number of votes cast in favour of each option. On the other hand, the legal scope of the response provided by the population differs significantly depending on the mechanism envisaged. In a popular consultation, the public is simply asked to indicate their preference between two or more possible decisions on a given subject; the result is a simple opinion, which the authorities are then free to follow or not. Conversely, in a referendum, people are asked to exercise decision-making power on a given subject; the choice of population is then binding on the authorities. In Belgium, the majority of legal doctrine considers the referendum to be unconstitutional, regardless of the level of power involved, since it is not provided for in the Belgian Constitution. On the other hand, after lengthy debates and despite political and legal resistance, the principle of popular consultation incorporated Belgian law: first at local level in the second half of the 1990s, then also at regional level in 2014 (as part of the sixth state reform). On the other hand, the practice of popular consultation at federal level remains widely regarded as unconstitutional in Belgium and is excluded at Community level. This weekly mail examines developments in the various legislative frameworks which currently allow (or prohibit) the organisation of popular consultations or referendums in Belgium, whether at federal, federal or local level (province, municipality, etc.). ; La consultation populaire et le référendum sont deux mécanismes de démocratie directe. Dans un cas comme dans l'autre, la population est invitée à voter directement sur une ou plusieurs questions bien déterminées afin d'exprimer sa volonté, et les résultats se mesurent en nombre de voix émises en faveur de chaque option. En revanche, la ...

The referendum is a poorly used mechanism for direct participation in the Spanish system, at both state and regional level. The discussion on the feasibility of this system at regional level has been examined by the Constitutional Court. Influenced by the reluctance with which constituents viewed the mechanisms of direct democracy, they still have a reductive view of the referendum. The State therefore reserves the right to exercise very intensive controls on the provision and authorization of referendums and on the specific exercise of each referendum

The realization of this consultation aims to continue strengthening the links to ensure the full introduction of the environmental dimension in territorial planning, in order to combine the territorial planning of socio-economic development with relevant environmental assessment, enabling the responsible management of natural resources and the protection and rehabilitation of the environment to improve the quality of life of the population. The development of the plan is designed starting from a broad institutional, administrative, government and citizen participation, so it is a document that is addressed to the entire population and, in particular, the institutions involved and that promote development.

Guided by the Framing Theory, this paper presents the final results of a content analysis performed on a group of news from three cases of environmental popular consultations in Colombia, aiming to find the main generic frames on them to understand how the debate was shaped within the Andean country during 2017. The context of those consultations was that they took place on the first year without armed confrontation, after the peace agreement was signed, with former FARC guerrilla and when the national debate shifted from the war itself to social justice issues.
Results showed that all of the collected stories had, at least, three frames that were mainly human interest, focused on portraying the human side of actors involved; conflict, displaying the disagreement between pro and con sides as well as proclaiming winners and or losers; and attribution of responsibility, putting responsibility on actors and groups involved, and offering solutions such as relying on congress or the highest courts to fill the legal gap. These findings confirm that environmental conflicts constitute a new form of crisis in the post-conflict Colombia.

We examine the democratic legitimacy of popular referendums asking whether they should be understood as bypassing or complementing representative institutions. To answer this question, we focus on the distinction between legislative referendums and consultative ones, noting that even though referendums of the latter kind are by far more prevalent from an empirical point of view, their specific role in democratic decision-making remains under-theorized in the existing literature. We therefore focus on consultative referendums as a possible way of reconciling the referendum procedure with representative democracy. First, we clarify the specific conception of representative democracy that underscores our study; second, we develop the idea that consultative referendums are to be understood to specify the political mandate of elected representatives; finally, we apply the results of this conceptual work to the case of the Greek bailout and the Brexit referendums, aiming to dispel some lingering misconceptions concerning the normative implications of their results and thereby clarifying the normative significance of our theory.

Abstract:The Catalonia law of popular consultations of 2014, constitute a desire to enhance the citizen participation in political decision-making, but at the same time, it was an attempt to approve a lawe that would serve as the legal framework to hold a true referendum about the political future of Catalonia. This purpose was avoided by the Constitutional Court, stablishing that only sectoral and never general consultations are allowed. ; Resumen:La Ley Catalana de Consultas Populares de 2014 constituye un deseo de potenciar la participación ciudadana en la toma de decisiones políticas pero al tiempo era un intento de aprobar una norma que sirviera de marco jurídico para celebrar un verdadero referéndum sobre el futuro político de Cataluña, propósito evitado por el Tribunal Constitucional estableciendo que solo caben las consultas sectoriales y nunca las generales. Abstract:The Catalonia law of popular consultations of 2014, constitute a desire to enhance the citizen participation in political decision-making, but at the same time, it was an attempt to approve a lawe that would serve as the legal framework to hold a true referendum about the political future of Catalonia. This purpose was avoided by the Constitutional Court, stablishing that only sectoral and never general consultations are allowed. Summary:I. Introduction. II. Historical Previous Law Issues. III. Law Topic

The Colombian legal system establishes in its political letter mechanisms for citizen participation, as a legal tool that the State has established so that citizens can actively participate in decisions that affect them. That said, in Colombia, a legal debate arose from the implementation of the Popular Consultation as a mechanism to prohibit mining activity in municipalities, thus generating a tension between the central sector and territorially decentralized entities regarding the distribution of administrative powers; as well as the legal effects of the judicial decisions desired by the Constitutional Court and the Council of State, through which jurisprudential parameters have been established regarding the regulation of soil and subsoil in Colombia. Through this article, the objective is to establish the competence that municipalities have to decide popular consultation on mining and energy matters, observing the recent jurisprudential pronouncements adopted on the matter in particular. For the development of the main research, legal hermeneutics was used, applying the exegetical and systematic method for the analysis of the different components of the research. Through analysis of jurisprudential decisions, the results that define the thesis are evidenced through which it is stated that municipalities do have the power to prohibit mining activities in their territories; but this is not absolute and is exercised in harmony with the Nation. ; El ordenamiento jurídico colombiano establece en su carta política mecanismos de participación ciudadana, como una herramienta jurídica que el Estado ha consagrado para que la ciudadanía participe activamente de las decisiones que les afecten. Dicho lo anterior, en Colombia, se originó un debate jurídico a partir de la implementación de la Consulta Popular como mecanismo para prohibir la actividad minera en los municipios, generando así una tensión entre el sector central y las entidades descentralizadas territorialmente respecto de la distribución de competencias administrativas; así como también, los efectos jurídicos de las decisiones judiciales adoptadas por la Corte Constitucional y el Consejo de Estado, a través de las cuales se han fijado parámetros jurisprudenciales en lo concerniente a la regulación del suelo y subsuelo en Colombia. A través de este artículo, se tiene como objetivo establecer la competencia que tienen los municipios para decidir mediante consulta popular asuntos mineroenergéticos, observando los recientes pronunciamientos jurisprudenciales adoptados sobre el asunto en particular. Para el desarrollo de la investigación principal, se utilizó la hermenéutica jurídica, aplicando el método exegético y sistemático para el análisis de los diferentes componentes de la investigación. Mediante el análisis de las decisiones jurisprudenciales, se evidencian los resultados que definen la tesis a través de la cual se plantea que, los municipios si tienen competencia para prohibir actividades mineras en sus territorios; pero ésta no es absoluta y se ejerce de manera armónica con la Nación.

The language of democracy and democratic organization is usually spoken only in the vernacular of liberal democracy. Liberal democracy, mostly of western origin centers legitimacy of a political order on open, full, and free election for representatives, as well as a substantially unregulated civic space in which individuals and others can engage in political discourse. This essentially exogenous form of democratic organization has been increasingly challenged in the 21st century by an alternative model of endogenous democracy more compatible with states organized along Marxist Leninist principles. These emerging forms of endogenous democratic practices have been developed along two distinct lines, one embedded in developing principles for Chinese Marxism-Leninism, and the other grounded in the leadership of Raúl Castro from 2011. It traces the pragmatic and theoretic developments from early efforts around the development of the Guidelines for Reform of 2011, through the articulation of a new political and economic model in 2016, and then emerging in its current 2.0 form in the elaborate process of popular consultation and affirmation of the 2019 Cuban Constitution. The paper covers the challenges, contradictions, and potential for this endogenous form of democracy.

Selected official statements and documents from UN, Indonesian, and US sources on aftermath of referendum on independence. Includes texts of UN Security Council Resolutions 1264 (Sept. 15, 1999) and 1272 (Oct. 25, 1999).