Teoría y práctica de los derechos ancestrales de agua de las comunidades atacameñas

Abstract

Since the beginning of the twentieth century, the principal cause of water loss from the Aymaras and Atacamenas communities of the north of Chile, has been juridical deregulation. The juridical deregulation is a consequence of the subordination of the customary indigene right to the positive state right, in a scenario of increasing demand of this resource from miner's centers and the cities of the zone. This situation changed, at least in part, with the dictation of the Law N° 19.253 in 1993, known as the Indigene Law, which recognized the water rights as ancestral property of the aymaras and atacamenas communities, allowing their regularization. The first part of my work is referred to the conflict between indigene rights and estatal rights, and to the implication of the legal recognition of the water's ancestral rights. In the second part, you will find aspects of the first regularization program of water rights of atacamenas communities, whose execution was entrusted to me by the National Corporation of Indigene Development, between the years 1994 and 1999