The New Zealand case resulted in the Parliament passing The Te Awa Tupua Act , and appointing two guardians of the river that represented different stakeholders with diverse worldviews: one for the indigenous people and one for the Crown.

In 2017, lawsuits were filed in New Zealand, Colombia, and India on behalf of four rivers and won some legal rights. In 2011, Bolivia passed a law granting nature equal rights to humans, called the Law of Mother Earth. Although the Court ruled in favor of the river, the construction company ignored the ruling, and the government took no action. All persons, communities, peoples, and nations can call upon public authorities to enforce the Rights of Nature.” A lawsuit using the Rights of Nature provision was filed in 2011 by the Global Alliance for Rights of Nature (GARN) against a construction company for building a road across a river and dumping debris in the river. The constitutional provisions state: “Nature, or Pachamama, where life is reproduced and occurs, has the right to integral respect for its existence and for the maintenance and regeneration of its life cycles, structure, functions and evolutionary processes. In 2008, Ecuador became the first country to implement the Rights of Nature, also called the Rights of Pachamama (Mother Earth). Here are some examples of the lawsuits filed: Government actions have sought ecosystem protection through nature rights in Bangladesh, Bolivia, Canada, Colombia, Ecuador, France, India, Mexico, New Zealand, Pakistan, Spain and Uganda.

Since 1972, the concept of the Rights of Nature has been used in legislation, court rulings and constitutional amendments in many countries. Morton, which sought to restrain the Federal government from approving a ski development in the Sequoia National Forest. Douglas argued “nature’s ecological equilibrium should lead to the conferral of standing upon environmental objects to sue for their own preservation.” This legal doctrine was used in a dissent by Supreme Court Justice William O. Activities by nations and states Ī seminal law review article, Should Trees Have Standing, in 1972 by a law professor at the University of Southern California, proposed that nature has legal rights. The first part of this essay will look into legal frameworks being utilized across the globe in efforts to protect nature’s rights.

When nature bears legal rights similar to human beings, then it has the right to legal representation by an appointed guardian, who can file lawsuits against those who are causing environmental harm, including sea level rise, air and water pollution, deforestation, and extinction of species, along with extreme weather causing flooding and droughts and extreme heat. The right recognizes that ecosystems such as rivers, lakes, and mountains are entitled to legal personhood status. The “Rights of Nature” reorients how humans relate to nature from a relationship of exploitation to one of interdependence and equality. The Rights of Nature “as a key global legal movement, instrumental in preserving and restoring the health of Nature for future generations” is a project promoted by the United Nations that seeks to secure the Rights of Nature globally. Thoresen G20 Interfaith Forum Working Group on the EnvironmentĢ1 September 2023 Review of the Legal Movement By Clair Brown, Arthur Dahl, Yoshinobu Miyake, Sherrie Steiner, and Victoria W.

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