Literature Review

As part of its Rights of Nature movement in 2012, Bolivia adopted a new approach to environmental law. In view of its status of South America’s poorest country, with nearly 40% of it’s citizens living in poverty, this undertaking surprised many countries. Economists fear the increased challenges it may cause, while environmentalists largely support it.

The rich potential of legal rights in advancing planetary health is no longer untapped. “The right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment as a human right” is now recognized.

Argyrou and Hummels analyse the language of New Zealand’s Te Awa Tupua Act, which assigns the Whanganui River legal rights with Māori guardianship to preserve the cultural and spiritual relationship of the land and the people. Because the Whanganui River is central to the identity of the Māori people, there are clear grounds upon which to justify its designation of legal personhood; without the interdependence of the two, this would be significantly more difficult to accomplish. Argyrou and Hummels argue beyond ecocentric and anthropocentric conceptions of humans’ relationship to nature, instead proposing a third alternative wherein nature and humanity are connected as a single entity in an “intertwined economy.” This new conception necessitates the consideration of the health and needs of both the people and the river, allowing putting forth a new model of sustainable development which includes legal rights.

While earth system governance has become a well-researched topic, its corresponding link to law has received relatively little scholarly attention. In this article, Kotzé and Kim advocate earth system law as a holistic response to the unique regulatory challenges posed by the Anthropocene epoch. The authors outline a variety of ways in which the law as it is currently conceived is not equipped to address the rapidly changing social and ecological conditions of the modern era, arguing instead for deep structural reforms and global governance beyond state-centric systems. Drawing a distinction between international law and planetary law, Kotzé and Kim propose a framework for earth law that departs from traditional environmental regulation by elevating nature beyond its status as a utilitarian object. Unlike ecological law, earth law embraces the planet as a human-dominated, socio-ecological system that looks toward the future in developing a vision to sustain a diversity of life for generations to come. As climate change progresses, Kotzé and Kim remind us that it is increasingly urgent for the global community to champion legal paradigms that take a proactive approach to prevent us from crossing key planetary boundaries

The practice of granting legal personhood to rivers, lakes and other natural sources was until now limited to certain areas of countries with Indigenous populations. his international momentum mirrors a number of initiatives in France, many of them led by groups of local residents who defend the rights of rivers, including the Tavignano River in Corsica, the Garonne in Nouvelle-Aquitaine and the Têt in the Pyrénées-Orientales.

One of Thomas Berry’s major contributions to what he called the Great Work was his articulation of the principles and philosophy of Earth Jurisprudence. (...) “Earth Jurisprudence is the term first used by cultural historian Thomas Berry to name the philosophy of governance and law, in which the Earth, not human interests, is primary. As he saw it, even the United States Constitution is fundamentally flawed by reserving all rights for humans and recognizing none for nature. For Thomas, the deficiency cries out for a fundamental transformation of our modern ideas of law. At the heart of this transformation, he noted, is the shift from a human-centered to an Earth-centered understanding of our relationship with the larger community of life. A profound change in perspective, he felt, would enable humans to recognize and protect the inherent rights of the natural world. Given that the prevailing jurisprudence system does not protect other species or components of the living Earth, Thomas asked what would a different system look like?

In this article, Barentine argues that conventional Western modes of regulation fail to meaningfully mitigate light pollution. Artificial light at night (ALAN), which he describes as a “reverse ‘tragedy of the commons,’” has adverse effects on systems from global economics to biological processes. Barentine considers both legal and legislative avenues as possible pathways to pursue the regulation of light pollution, but concludes that neither one is a reliable option given the magnitude of the issue and the pervasiveness of lackluster policies meant to tackle it. As an alternative, Barentine advocates a Rights of Nature approach to managing light pollution that recognizes the inherent natural value of dark nights for ecosystems and the public good. Barentine does recognize that Rights of Nature paradigms are novel, and their success in mitigating ALAN would largely be measured by the extent to which they raised public awareness about the dangers of light pollution.

This study, commissioned by the European Parliament’s Policy Department for Citizens’ Rights and Constitutional Affairs at the request of the JURI Committee,explores the conceptof “Rights of Nature” (RoN) and its different aspects in legal philosophy and international agreements,as well as in legislation and case- law on different levels. The study delves on the ideas of rights of nature in comparison with rights to nature, legal personhood and standing in court for natural entities, and analyses ECtHR and CJEU case-law on access to justice in environmental decision-making. It emphasises, in particular, the need to strengthen the requirements for independent scientific evaluations in certain permit regimes under EU law. The study also highlights the crucial importance of promoting the role of civil society as watchdog over the implementation of EU environmental law by way of a wider access to justice via both the national courts and the CJEU, which is also in line with the political priorities for delivering the European Green Deal.

Mother Earth has provided food, water, and protection for humans for more than 6 million years. Yet since the industrial revolution, consumption of natural resources has only increased. We now face a grim future: protect nature or suffer the consequences without it. Does nature have rights?

According to the judicial branch, from 2008 through 2018, 3,500 offenses were brought under this statute. Approximately 80% of these cases were either dismissed or not prosecuted (see sidebar for procedural outcomes). In reviewing this data, it is important to note that an individual could be charged with multiple offenses or have multiple cases during a year.

In this paper, Kotzé and Calzadilla detail the history of rights of nature laws in Bolivia, examining the country’s Constitution, the Law of the Rights of Mother Earth, and the Framework Law of Mother Earth and Integral Development for Living Well. While the Bolivian constitution does not explicitly grant rights to nature, it does create frameworks for such recognition in the future by incorporating the right of citizens to a healthy, protected, and balanced natural environment, and subsequent laws have expanded these protections to grant Mother Earth equal status. However, efforts to effect cultural change should not end with legal reform. As societies around the world confront the destructive nature of their anthropocentrism, Kotzé and Calzadilla stress the importance of learning from indigenous worldviews to guide the path forward.

Since the onset of colonization, indigenous peoples have had stolen their rights to land, natural resources, culture, language, and other essential aspects of their identities and sacred practices, and have long been embroiled in legal battles to reclaim them. Thompson details the ways in which contemporary rights of nature discourse has provided Native nations an avenue for reclamation through legal provisions such as the Montana exceptions, which in some cases allow them to regulate the conduct of members and non-members to maintain self-governance and protect their territory. To conclude, Thompson discusses various examples of rights of nature in practice, such as the Rights of Manoomin treaty and the Klamath River declaration.