What Are Rights of Nature? Rights of Nature are the beginning of a new legal paradigm in western culture. The idea argues that nature holds inalienable rights, and that vital parts of Nature — a river or watershed or ecosystem — shall be granted personhood in the court of law and be provided with legal standing to defend itself.
The idea for Rights of Nature generally dates back to 1972 when professor Christopher Stone published the article, “Should trees have standing – toward legal rights for natural objects.” The concept is often credited alongside indigenous cultures in America for the way they relate to and treat the environment that sustains their way of life.
Rights of Nature Legislative Examples, History, Timeline, Documents & References
https://www.invisiblehandfilm.com/what-are-rights-of-nature/
The notion that nature has rights is a huge conceptual advance in protecting the Earth. Prior to this framework, an environmental lawsuit could only be filed if a personal human injury was proven in connection to the environment. This can be quite difficult. Under Ecuadorian law, people can now sue on the ecosystem’s behalf, without it being connected to a direct human injury…
…Property rights are a primary example of commodifying the natural world. When treated as property, nature incurs damages that often go unrecognized. Stone writes that an argument for “personifying” nature can best be considered from a welfare economics perspective. Under capitalist economic logic, many externalities that negatively impact the environment are not registered when calculating the cost of an action. Transforming nature legally from mere property to a rights-holding entity would force byproduct environmental effects of production to factor into cost calculations. Under this framework, nature would be better protected.
Incorporating rights of nature into a national constitution is a powerful paradigm shift, but may seem hypocritical and idealistic given states’ continuing dependence on extractive industries. In Ecuador, 14.8 percent of the GDP comes from profits from natural resources as of 2014…
The Rights of Nature: Indigenous Philosophies Reframing Law | Intercontinental Cry
https://intercontinentalcry.org/rights-nature-indigenous-philosophies-reframing-law/
Rights of Nature is about balancing what is good for human beings against what is good for other species, what is good for the planet as a world. It is the holistic recognition that all life, all ecosystems on our planet are deeply intertwined.
Rather than treating nature as property under the law, rights of nature acknowledges that nature in all its life forms has the right to exist, persist, maintain and regenerate its vital cycles.
And we – the people – have the legal authority and responsibility to enforce these rights on behalf of ecosystems. The ecosystem itself can be named as the defendant.
For indigenous cultures around the world recognizing rights of nature is simply what is so and consistent with their traditions of living in harmony with nature. All life, including human life, are deeply connected. Decisions and values are based on what is good for the whole.
Nonetheless, for millennia legal systems around the world have treated land and nature as “property”. Laws and contracts are written to protect the property rights of individuals, corporations and other legal entities. As such environmental protection laws actually legalize environmental harm by regulating how much pollution or destruction of nature can occur within the law. Under such law, nature and all of its non-human elements have no standing.
By recognizing rights of nature in its constitution, Ecuador – and a growing number of communities in the United States – are basing their environmental protection systems on the premise that nature has inalienable rights, just as humans do. This premise is a radical but natural departure from the assumption that nature is property under the law.
“You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.” ― R. Buckminster Fuller
http://therightsofnature.org/what-is-rights-of-nature/
Such laws also recognize the authority of people, communities, and governments to defend those rights.
https://www.pachamama.org/advocacy/rights-of-nature
...environmental laws, rather than protecting the rights of the environment to exist and thrive, instead regulate its use and exploitation. Thus, environmental laws largely legalize harm -- including fracking, mountaintop removal mining, and pipelines -- rather than protect against it.
These laws are premised on nature being considered property under the law, and therefore, as right-less. Much like indigenous peoples, slaves, and women have been considered right-less under the law -- unable to defend their own basic rights to life and well-being -- so today do environmental laws treat nature.
A movement is building to advance a different paradigm, one which is recognizing the inherent rights of nature.
Rights of nature laws have now been passed in more than three dozen communities in the United States, as well as codified in Ecuador's Constitution. These laws recognize the inalienable rights of nature -- or Pacha Mama as is stated in Article 71 of the Ecuador Constitution - to exist, thrive, evolve, and be restored. These laws transform nature from being property under the law to being rights-bearing...
http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/39637-on-the-rights-of-nature
Rights of Nature: A Few Theoretical Considerations | Earth Law Center |
https://www.earthlawcenter.org/blog-entries/2018/1/rights-of-nature-a-few-theoretical-considerations
Mother Earth Rights | World People's Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth
https://pwccc.wordpress.com/category/working-groups/03-mother-earth-rights/
What do we mean when we say that nature has rights?
Under the current system of law in almost every country, nature is considered to be property. Something that is considered property confers upon the property owner the right to damage or destroy it. Thus, those who “own” wetlands, forestland, and other ecosystems and natural communities, are largely permitted to use them however they wish, even if that includes destroying the health and well-being of nature.
When we talk about the Rights of Nature, it means recognizing that ecosystems and natural communities are not merely property that can be owned. Rather, they are entities that have an independent and inalienable right to exist and flourish.
Rights Of Nature FAQ
https://cooscommons.org/rights-of-nature/
CELDF | Community Rights Pioneers | Protecting Nature and Communities]
Nature and the Law: Democracy Journal
