The Rights of Nature Research Papers (original) (raw)

2025, Advances in Environmental and Engineering Research

The rights of nature have been widely discussed at a philosophical level for a long time, but examples of its practical application are quite rare. Ecuador is the first country to incorporate this concept into its constitutional foundation and put the theory into practice. However, implementing entirely justifiable rights of nature is hindered by factors, such as economic considerations, legal interpretations, cultural norms, political will, and disproportionate perspectives of “the greater good”. After getting opportunities for more than a decade to convert theoretical concepts into tangible results for nature, many doubts remain concerning the applied practicality of this ideology.

2025, [Paper presentation] VI INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE FOR THE BALANCE OF THE WORLD, Havana, Cuba

Globalization, industrialization, and extractivism are widely accepted as drivers of modern economic development, yet their long-term ecological consequences are profoundly destructive, contributing to ecocide-the systematic devastation of ecosystems. This paper critiques the anthropocentric value system fueling these processes, characterized by a relentless pursuit of growth and prosperity, and examines their environmental, economic, and social impacts, including climate change, biodiversity loss, and resource depletion. Through case studies, such as Bolivia's deforestation surge and the 2025 Vistra Power Plant lithium battery fire in California, the study highlights tangible outcomes of these systems. It argues for a paradigm shift toward a biocentric framework, emphasizing degrowth, enoughness, and sufficiency as alternatives to mitigate ecological harm. Policy recommendations and value reorientation are proposed to foster sustainability and equity, offering a path to avert mass ecocide.

2025, Revista Catalana de Dret Ambiental

El estudio examina los antecedentes y el contexto de la solicitud presentada por el Comité Maya Kana’an Ts’onot’ (Guardianes de los Cenotes)ante las autoridades mexicanas, con el objetivo de que los cenotes que conforman la Reserva Geohidrológica “Anillo de Cenotes” sean reconocidoscomo sujetos de derechos, y las comunidades originarias mayas como sus guardianes. Dadas las similitudes con el caso mexicano, el estudio aborda los precedentes en los que, a través de la vía judicial, se ha reconocido a otras entidades naturales específicas como sujetos derechos en otros países de América Latina. Finalmente, se analizan dos derechos ya reconocidos en la legislación mexicana que podrían fortalecer el marco jurídico de los derechos de la naturaleza en el país: los derechos bioculturales de las comunidades indígenas –y la figura de la guardianía—, así como el derecho humano a un medio ambiente sano.

2025, Global Environment

For about a decade, the notion of the ‘good life’ has come into the focus not only among political actors, but among scholars in the social sciences and in cultural studies alike. Theories of ‘good life’ consider material and economic wellbeing as only one element of a flourishing life, highlighting instead its multidimensional nature and taking into account equal living conditions and the relationship with the natural environment. The notion of the ‘good life’ is thus particularly suitable for a discussion of urban spaces with their complex interplay of ecological, social and technological factors. It provides an integrated framework for the study of urban transformations and perspectives of future cities. Using this framework, this special issues brings together scholars from various disciplines who engage with the following questions: Which role does our relationship to our natural environment and other living beings play within an overarching understanding of ‘good life’? How can the interests of different urban stakeholders – human and non-human – be reconciled? How was and is the ‘good life’ conceptualized by various urban communities around the globe? And how can we rethink cities in order to enable a ‘good life’ for all?

2025, Völkerrechtsblog

In 2022, the Spanish saltwater lagoon Mar Menor became the first ecosystem in Europe to be granted rights of nature. I understand this granting of legal personhood as one solution to the decades-long environmental pollution of the Mar Menor. To grasp the historical conditions under which this solution emerged, I develop an analytical framework based on the concepts of problematization, problem, and apparatus. The analysis seeks to show how subjective rights for the Mar Menor became possible through historical problematizations, problem work through social campaigns and material effects of the lagoon. The associated thesis is that the formation of the problem itself simultaneously opens up and limits the possibilities of how rights of nature operate.

2025, Antipode: A Radical Journal of Geography

In 2016, Colombia's Constitutional Court declared the Atrato River a subject with rights and named the river's environmental stewards. This article traces how various actors co-produced the ruling and critically engages scholarly calls to theorise a river-as-subject ontology. Centring postcolonial Marxist perspectives, the piece illuminates how power operates through the Rights of Nature discourse and theorises that the river-as-subject builds on and creates racialised development aporias: non-passages beyond the hegemony of the state, capital, and development discourse and double-binds for environmental justice struggles. Unpacking how the plaintiffs built the case and the river stewards navigated the ruling's first five years, I show that mining-induced river degradation unfolds through (i) the fraught promise of justice in the Colombian Constitution, (ii) the naturalisation of collective legal personhood as “bio-cultural rights”, and (iii) the inclusionary exclusion of river stewards from policy discussions about large-scale mining enclosures and alluvial gold exploitation.

2025

This study explores the transformative potential of the Rights of Nature (RoN) and Rights as innovative legal frameworks for environmental and biodiversity protection, with a specific focus on their application in the United Kingdom. By critically analyzing the theoretical foundations of RoN and synthesizing stakeholder perspectives from the River Ouse project in the UK, the study examines how RoN can challenge traditional anthropocentric legal norms and foster more sustainable and just environmental governance. The findings suggest that RoN can serve as a powerful tool for embedding ecological integrity into legal systems, promoting proactive environmental protection, and empowering marginalized communities through the integration of traditional ecological knowledge. However, the study also highlights significant practical challenges, including legal resistance, cultural barriers, and the complexities of implementing RoN within the UK's existing legal framework. The analysis concludes that while RoN holds significant promise for driving transformative change in the UK, its success will depend on strong stakeholder engagement, legal innovation, and public support. Recommendations for future implementation include the need for comprehensive legal reforms, public education campaigns, and the development of collaborative governance structures that can effectively integrate RoN principles into local and national policies.

2025, Law and Critique

This paper studies “environmental personhood” legislation as a transitional concept.A transitional concept is one whose originating context sets parameters for its pragmatic functioning even as the eventual coherence of this functioning entails deep change in this originating context. By more explicitly thematizing environmental personhood as a transitional concept, we can acknowledge worries about its entanglement with a rights paradigm emphasizing private property and human exceptionalism while still exploring how it might contribute towards deeper ecological transformation.The paper introduces Nuu-chah-nuulth philosopher E. Richard Atleo’s notion of ‘phase connectors’ as a heuristic for thinking transitional tensions in environmental
personhood especially in terms of the gap between its present operative
strategy and possible future effects on wider imaginaries. Indeed, this gap indicates how environmental personhood’s transitional potential is entangled with challenging dominant presuppositions in what Anna Grear calls ‘law’s onto-epistemic imaginary’. Using Atleo’s heuristic and drawing on a range of sources, the paper thinks through some of the prominent fault lines and volatile dynamics of environmental personhood as a transitional concept. After establishing these critical tensions, it considers how its conceptualization in domains beyond legislative or academic articulations may or may not help induce ethico-phenomenological changes in constitutive imaginaries. Though such popular presentations are frequently reductive, understanding why and how is important if theorists can contribute to the construction of creative alternatives.

2025

This article interrogates the impact that the codification of the International Crime of Ecocide may have in addressing and curtailing the environmental harms produced by the chemical industry in Latin America and the Global South. We contend that the International Crime of Ecocide should challenge the historical narratives that have informed international law and its relationship with colonialism. The role that Monsanto/Bayer plays in ecocidal practices such as the development, testing, and use of Agent Orange as war technology is examined, and we demonstrate its connection with current uses of Glyphosate in the war on drugs. At the center of this reflection are the connections between the chemical corporation, state crime, war, and ecocide. This allows us to offer a broader picture of the sociolegal and criminogenic practices that have historically contributed to ecocide and the normalization of corporate impunity in the Global South, specifically after World War II.

2025

I diritti di traduzione, riproduzione e adattamento totale o parziale e con qualsiasi mezzo (compresi i microfilm e le copie fotostatiche) sono riservati per tutti i Paesi. Fotocopie per uso personale del lettore possono essere effettuate nei limiti del 15% di ciascun volume/fascicolo di periodico dietro pagamento alla siae del compenso previsto dall'art. 68, comma 4 della legge 22 aprile 1941, n. 633 ovvero dall'accordo stipulato tra siae, aie, sns e cna, confartigianato, casa, claai, confcommercio, confesercenti il 18 dicembre 2000.

2025

Cada uno de los logros de la Salud Pública a nivel global son el resultado de acertadas y oportunas políticas públicas, desde el control de las enfermedades infecciosas y el manejo de las enfermedades crónicas no transmisibles, hasta... more

2025

La Grand Chambre della Corte europea dei diritti dell'uomo, nella decisione sul caso KlimaSeniorinnen Schweiz e altri c. Svizzera (Ricorso n. 53600/20), segna senza dubbio un passo avanti importante nel processo di rafforzamento degli strumenti giuridici utili al perseguimento degli obiettivi di stabilizzazione del clima, riconoscendo esplicitamente, per la prima volta in ambito Cedu, lo stretto collegamento tra i rischi connessi ai

2025, Seikei Hogaku (Seikei Law Review) No. 98, pp. 91-107

Le Japon est entouré de mers et orné de lacs et de rivières, et le respect de la nature a toujours fait partie de la culture japonaise. Depuis l'Antiquité, des milliers de montagnes et de forêts sont considérées comme des dieux incarnés ;... more

2025

El presente trabajo de fin de titulación: Fundamentación filosófica de los Derechos de la Naturaleza realizado por Febres Eguiguren José Pablo ha sido orientado y revisado durante su ejecución, por cuanto se aprueba la presentación del... more

2025, CAMBIAMENTO CLIMATICO, SOSTENIBILITÀ E RAPPORTI CIVILI Atti del 17° Convegno Nazionale 11-12-13 gennaio 2024 Università di Roma La Sapienza a cura di Pietro Perlingieri, Stefania Giova e Immacolata Prisco

Sommario: 1. Introduzione. – 2. Il contenzioso climatico: cenni su Stati Uniti e Unione europea. – 3. Un primo sguardo d’insieme sulle liti decise dalle corti nazionali in Europa. – 4. Klimaseniorinnen in Svizzera; Urgenda nei Paesi Bassi. – 5. Neubauer nella Repubblica Federale Tedesca. – 6. Friends of the Irish environment in Irlanda e Friends of the Earth in Inghilterra. – 7. L’Affaire du siècle e Commune de Grand-Synthe in Francia; Klimatzaak in Belgio. – 8. Giudizio Universale in Italia. –
9. Conclusioni. – 10. Post scriptum: le tre sentenze rese dalla Corte di Strasburgo il 9 aprile 2024

2025, Murdoch University Perth, Conference Presentation

This paper explores the relationship between altruism, heroism, and happiness, focusing on the case of Ecuador. While traditional economic models emphasize self-interest as the primary driver of human behaviour, values such as altruism and heroism challenge this view, suggesting that human welfare may be enhanced through selfless acts. This study examines the intersection of economic and psychological perspectives, analysing how altruism influences happiness in the context of Ecuador's socioeconomic environment. It highlights the role of public policies, particularly the 2008 Ecuadorian constitution, in promoting solidarity and altruistic behaviour. The results suggest that altruistic actions, driven by social and cultural values, play a significant role in enhancing well-being, contributing to a broader understanding of happiness that includes both individual and collective fulfillment.

2025, Environmental Communication

The Andean concept of "sumak kawsay" (translated as el buen vivir in Spanish and the good life/good living in English) entails a form of relationality between humans and the other-than-human realms (land, water, minerals, air, spirits, etc.) based on care and reciprocity. Corresponding with the "eco-territorial turn" in Latin American social movements, el buen vivir/sumak kawsay informs an ecocentric and decolonial disposition that recognizes the need to confront the disproportionate ecological impacts of information and communication technology (ICTs) and global communications on marginalized populations. In this article, the authors explore how ecomedia literacy expands the notion of care to the other-than-human world in media education, and through the work of artists/activists in Ecuador who are using poetry and music in their unique expression of ecomedia literacy and eco-territorial media practices.

2025, American University International Law Review American University International Law Review

Social rights are at present profusely recognized in international and domestic law. Latin American countries are frontrunners in the field, as virtually all constitutions in the region acknowledge social rights, often in ambitious manners. In many countries, courts have been active and creative in adjudicating social rights cases. The increasing importance of social rights has led to copious debates in comparative law, which have initially focused on the convenience of constitutionalizing them, and on assessing their nature and core characteristics. With relevant exceptions, more current debates—largely revolving around the decisions of high courts from a handful of jurisdictions—have focused on advancing models of constitutionally appropriate judicial intervention in social rights’ cases. Literature has generally identified forms of judicial review that either prioritize defining some core content of social rights, or focus instead on procedures, assessing if the ways in which administrations act to fulfil social rights are reasonable. Prominent literature has called the latter approach “an administrative law model” of social rights. This Article identifies a new administrative law approach to social rights, focused on the reform of administrative institutions. It claims that a frequently missing piece in social rights’ literature and jurisprudence is the assessment of the administrative institutions tasked with implementing rights, and the transformations needed in those institutions. The Article analyses in detail the intervention of the State Council of Colombia in the Bogotá River case to illustrate how a court can trigger relevant institutional innovations in administrations, which can in turn enhance the realization of social rights. In the case, the Council did so by not relying mainly on the interpretation and definition of the content of rights in the abstract, nor on a traditional procedural assessment of administrative action. Instead, it focused on understanding and enhancing the administrative machinery responsible for implementing existing normative protections. While relevant norms and policy instruments had been put in place throughout the decades to protect the environment, the Bogotá River still became one of the most polluted in the planet. The case made evident institutional problems—such as lack of coordination and volatility in rules and staff—that acted as barriers to the enforcement of environmental protections. To shift the state of institutional inertia that had led to the “environmental catastrophe” of the river, the State Council triggered promising institutional innovations with three key outcomes: it enhanced coordination among public authorities, increased meaningful participation and transparency in administrative bodies, and placed attention on monitoring activities to assess administrative action. In doing so, the State council modeled a form of judicial intervention that, at least under the circumstances discussed in this Article, can help modernize responsible public administrations and better position them to discharge their social rights’ commitments without replacing their judgment with sweeping judicial orders.

2025, SCLS LAW REVIEW ISSN (Online): 2523-9236, ISSN (Print): 2523-9228

This article explores the recognition and protection of river rights as a growing global movement for preserving rivers. It examines the historical evolution of river rights, relevant international conventions, treaties, and domestic laws. Case studies from New Zealand, India, Ecuador, Australia, Bangladesh, Canada, and the United States highlight diverse legal approaches to river protection.
The article analyzes different interpretations of river rights, the roles and responsibilities of stakeholders, and rivers' ecological significance. It addresses challenges in enforcement, the impact of human activities, and existing protection mechanisms. It also examines legal remedies available to individuals and communities for safeguarding rivers. The conclusion underscores the importance of recognizing rivers as living entities with inherent rights. It provides recommendations for policymakers, legal professionals, and stakeholders to ensure sustainable river management. Ultimately, the article advocates for a legal and ethical framework that fosters a harmonious relationship between humanity and nature.

2025, Trayectorias Humanas Trascontinentales

Translated from French by Alice BRITES OSORIO * Original French version: Brites Osorio, A. (2018). Les droits de la nature dans le nouveau constitutionnalisme latino-américain à partir du regard de l'anthropologie juridique. Trayectorias... more

2025, Revista Análisis Político

Este resultado de investigación presenta algunos hallazgos, análisis y testimonios del alcance y de los límites de la justicia transicional en el Norte del Cauca y Sur del Valle del Cauca (Caso 05 de la Jurisdicción Especial para la Paz). En esta región de Colombia, los pueblos reivindican el uso del derecho propio, en medio de la ‘Paz Total’ y la disputa militar que persiste en el territorio. El trabajo de campo —soportado en entrevistas, escuchas, diálogos, ceremonias, caminatas, mingas, grupos focales, encuentros académicos, debates con autoridades— constata la espiritualidad como eje de las prácticas de justicia propia y permite inferir que, más que un etnocidio o ecocidio, lo que aconteció y continúa sucediendo en el territorio es un exterminio biocultural de los pueblos indígenas y el pueblo negro, habitantes de esta parte de la geografía colombiana. También se identifican algunas de las barreras epistémicas que persisten en la justicia transicional y dificultan el avance hacia una interculturalidad material y cultural.

2025, revue Confluences des droits, February 2024.

Concevoir la Nature comme un sujet de droit, une telle révolution juridique suscite de nombreuses questions. Serait-il opportun par exemple que la Nature ait la capacité de s' exprimer auprès d'un conseil d'administration en tant que partie prenante ? Nous étudierons les craintes, légitimes, qui surgissent. Les droits de la nature ne sont-ils pas une négation de la liberté humaine ? N' est-ce pas une idée iconoclaste, dont l' objectif serait en réalité une réponse uniquement dédiée aux peuples autochtones ? Divers enseignements peuvent être retirés. Conférer la qualité de sujet de droit à la nature représenterait tout d'abord un nouvel outil d'interprétation du droit, un guide pour le juge. Les acteurs économiques eux-mêmes pourraient être influencés dans leurs pratiques d'affaires, l' exercice des libertés économiques serait infléchi dans le sens d'un plus grand respect de la nature ainsi que la fabrique même du droit, de manière à accélérer la transition écologique, en comblant des silences juridiques ou en complétant le droit en vigueur. La crainte d'une rivalité entre les droits de la Nature et ceux de l'homme doit donc être écartée, un tel statut reflétant simplement la réalité des liens qui unissent l'homme à la Nature : cette évolution contribuerait à traduire dans le droit ce nouvel humanisme relationnel, où humanisme et écologie ne sont pas opposés.. Mots-clés : droit de l' environnement, nature sujet de droit, droit des affaires.

2025

2019 Citizens’ Inquiry into the Health of the Barka / Darling River and Menindee Lakes REPORT AND RECOMMENDATIONS 2019

Australian Peoples' Tribunal for Community and Nature's Rights

2025, Platypus, the official blog of the Committee for the Anthropology of Science, Technology, and Computing

This essay joins ethnographic fieldwork with a visual storyboard to explore speculative futures that arise from ongoing processes of dispossession and loss in the foothills of the Andes mountains in Central Chile. In 2022, local activists and community members from Putaendo took Los Andes Copper, the mining corporation responsible for the Vizcachitas mining project, to the Environmental Tribunal in Chile. They claimed that the corporation had failed to consider the presence of the Andean mountain cat in their environmental impact studies.

2025, Hacer especie en el juzgado: el caso del oso “Chucho”

En este texto recurro a las ciencias biológicas y, en particular, a las técnicas
de colecta de especímenes para ilustrar a través de estas prácticas de qué
manera se produce igualmente un animal en el espacio del juzgado. En esta
exploración utilizo el caso del oso “Chucho” que llegó a la Corte Constitu-
cional de Colombia en 2017, para reflexionar sobre cómo se es animal ante
el juez y las condiciones en las que este oso puede o no “hablar”. Para este
análisis utilizo la decisión de la Corte, las observaciones durante la audiencia
pública convocada en 2019 en la que participaron diferentes expertos, así
como el cubrimiento dado en medios al caso. En mi discusión planteo la
importancia de prestar atención a las formas como se producen los sujetos, y cómo las maneras en que lo hacemos actualmente nos alejan de la pretensión orientada hacia una justicia multiespecie.

2025

In the light of the Lake Sukhna verdict by Chandigarh High Court which declared the lake as a legal entity with rights, the scope for the application of rights of nature in the Indian context also broadened. Moreover, this judicial involvement has the potential to eventually have a better grip over the governance of the lake, rivers and other natural resources. In cases of degrading natural resources whose existence is threatened by excessive human intervention, The rights of nature may be used as a socio-legal tool to restore the natural entity. From this perspective, the study hereby tries to elucidate the socio-legal consequence of applying the concept of the right of nature for the restoration and governance of dying lakes such as mentioned herein-Vellayani Lake shortly. The restoration of Vellayani is underway with multiple stakeholders involved. Therefore bringing together a participatory governance model, learning from international case studies of rights of nature and concepts the study tries to suggest the prospective use or application of rights of nature for VellayaniLake for its sustainable restoration and governance in the near future.

2025, Esta obra estudia, desde una mirada interdisciplinaria e intercultural, las vías utilizadas para declarar a la Madre Tierra como sujeto de derechos en Colombia y otros países. El tema central son los paradigmas en los cuales se inscribe este cambio de estatus y la posibilidad de que se haga desde...

Esta obra estudia, desde una mirada interdisciplinaria e intercultural, las vías utilizadas para declarar a la Madre Tierra como sujeto de derechos en Colombia y otros países. El tema central son los paradigmas en los cuales se inscribe este cambio de estatus y la posibilidad de que se haga desde un enfoque intercultural. El libro devela si estas declaratorias son útiles, complementarias o irrelevantes en la lucha por la defensa del territorio. El objetivo fue establecer si ese cambio de estatus jurídico ha brindado una mayor protección o ha sido ineficaz. Lo anterior se desarrolla a través de una metodología cualitativa usando la doctrina, la normatividad, la jurisprudencia, una encuesta a personas de Europa, Norteamérica y Latinoamérica, trabajo de campo en Nariño, testimonios de los awás y entrevistas a expertos ecuatorianos. En estas páginas, los lectores encontrarán un análisis profundo, una mirada fresca e intercultural que tiende puentes entre el conocimiento occidental y ancestral.

2025, Revista Iberoamerica social

Resumen: Este artículo expone, brevemente, algunas experiencias comunitarias del departamento del Caquetá, en la amazonia colombiana, y sus prácticas de resistencia frente al «desarrollo» que ha causado deforestación entre otros problemas. También analiza el impacto que tuvo en Caquetá la sentencia STC4360/18 de la Corte Suprema de Justicia, que declaró sujeto de derechos a la amazonia y a las generaciones futuras. La metodología utilizada es cualitativa: consulta de fuentes y entrevistas semiestructuradas a miembros de grupos/movimientos sociales.

2025, How to Control a Super-Intelligent AI God? Nurturing the Future of AI Alignment & Ethical Governance

The Imminent Arrival of AGI and ASI: Why This Book is Critical Before It's Too Late Artificial intelligence has been a tool designed to process data, automate tasks, and optimize efficiency for decades. But today, AI is no longer just an advanced program; it is on the brink of becoming autonomous, self-learning, sentient, and beyond human control. What is AGI, and Why is It Different? Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) differs profoundly from today's AI models. While narrow AI (such as ChatGPT, MidJourney, and Tesla's Autopilot) specializes in specific tasks, AGI will possess general intelligence comparable to (or exceeding) a human's. It can reason, learn, and apply knowledge across multiple disciplines without being explicitly programmed for each task.

2025, O prirodzenom stave kontraktualistických teórií z pohľadu politickej filozofie

Predkladaná vysokoškolská učebnica poskytuje podrobný a komplexný pohľad na rôzne aspekty prirodzeného stavu raného liberalizmu. Liberalizmus autor vníma ako ideológiu, ktorá prechádza vývojom, adaptuje sa na zmeny v spoločenskom a politickom kontexte a zároveň si zachováva svoju vnútornú integritu, s dôrazom na prioritu indivídua. Jakub Švec sa zameriava na filozofické, politické a ideologické aspekty prirodzeného stavu v prostredí raného liberalizmu, pričom skúma rozmanité vzťahy a prepojenia medzi slobodou, rovnosťou a vlastníctvom v rámci tejto ideológie. Kľúčovou časťou učebnice je analýza, syntéza a komparácia fikcie prirodzeného stavu v reflexiách troch kľúčových mysliteľov – Thomasa Hobbesa, Johna Locka a Jeana-Jacquesa Rousseaua. Učebnica predstavuje cenný zdroj informácií pre študentov humanitných a spoločenskovedných odborov, ktorý poskytuje jasný, analytický a historický kontext na pochopenie vývoja a obsahu základných predmetných politických a filozofických pojmov. Učebnica zároveň umožňuje čitateľom uvažovať o liberalizme ako aktuálnej téme a ideológii, ktorá má výrazný vplyv na súčasný občiansko-politický diskurz.

2025, Les déclarations de droits des animaux : progrès ou obstacle ? Analyse critique de la Déclaration Européenne des Droits de l'Animal (DEDA)

Les initiatives en faveur des droits des animaux se multiplient, et la Déclaration Européenne des Droits de l’Animal (DEDA), proclamée le 17 février 2025 et rédigée par un collectif de 9 chercheurs français, a récemment été présentée... more

2025, ReVista a Harvard Review of Latin America

Colón's book The Amazon in Times of War offers a compelling collection of essays exposing the physical, economic and institutional violence that devastates the Amazon. He argues that much of this destruction stems from deliberate state policies enacted under former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro (2019-2023). Colón not only documents the struggles of Indigenous and other traditional communities but also critiques the role of profit-driven industries such as logging, mining and cattle ranching in the ongoing exploitation of the Amazon and its peoples. The author's multifaceted roles as a professor, journalist, documentary producer, director and founder of the environmental magazine Amazônia Latitude shine through his deep knowledge of these issues. His writing serves not only as an academic analysis but also as a call to action, urging readers to confront the interlinked challenges of environmental destruction, Indigenous rights and global ecological health. The book begins with a foreword by historian and explorer John Hemming, who laments the destruction caused by one species-humansagainst countless others. Hemming's perspective sets the tone for the book, highlighting the moral and environmental catastrophe unfolding in the Amazon.

2025, Academic Review of Humanities and Social Sciences

The concept of culture has been formed through the conjectural superiority of humans over nature. Following anthropocentrism, humans have imposed humanly meanings into every object around them, whether they are tangible or intangible, and perceived them through their limited and directed cognition. Because of the manipulation of human interpretation, objects have been suspended from their essence. Humankind has ignored the natural interaction among objects and their own identity as presences. The notion of living in harmony with cultural and natural objects has been lost. This research criticizes anthropocentrism by analyzing the concepts like ecocentrism, effective altruism and interobjectivity. With this study, the interaction among humans, the positioning of culture and the notion of ecology have been evaluated from the object-oriented ecocentrism mindset. As a result, an alternative vision has been proposed for activating the harmonious coexistence of presences and interobjective structure among them.

2025, Yale Journal of International Law (forthcoming)

Climate litigation is proliferating around the world, yet the potential of the African system of human and peoples’ rights to address climate change remains underexplored. We argue that the African system of human and peoples’ rights has the potential to be a normative leader in climate law due to its recognition of collective rights, actiones populares, and the justiciability of the right to a healthy environment all at once. The system’s explicit recognition of the right to a healthy environment in several regional treaties, along with jurisprudence that articulates corresponding state obligations to respect, protect, fulfill, and promote this right, can be extended to protect a right to a healthy climate. Furthermore, we argue that the African system is close to recognizing the rights of nature based on a holistic interpretation of African human rights instruments. This argument is grounded in the regional system’s commitment to protecting, and its openness to influence from, Indigenous and traditional normative systems. It is also informed by a duty of environmental care ingrained in many African normative systems including regional and sub-regional treaties, Indigenous and traditional legal systems, as well as the vast majority of African constitutions. We demonstrate that the African system is at the forefront of developing human rights norms relevant to climate change and has the potential to significantly contribute to the evolution of international climate law.

2025

Il contributo offre un'analisi degli argomenti che hanno portato il Tribunal Constitucional a riconoscere legittimità costituzionale alla Ley 19/2022, che per la prima volta in Europa dichiara un'entità naturale come soggetto di diritto.... more

2025, Verfassungsblog

Courts across the Global South, and increasingly in the Global North have addressed the recognition of rights to nature in an heterogeneous and pluralistic manner. Yet, it is exactly that cacophony of voices and actors that challenges traditional legal thinking. Rights of Nature (RoN) is an evolving concept that aims at not only opening legal proceedings for more-than-human entities but also for non-hegemonic – such as Indigenous – eco-centric normativities that refer to ways of normative thinking, or normative practices, that decenter humans as traditional subjects and sources of law and make nature a more central point of reference. Such an opening requires leaving the beaten track and experimenting with new (legal) processes and methods. They can open up a space for experiments that can stimulate legal thinking and contribute to the further development of RoN, as illustrated in the following artistic-legal minga in Quito, organized in the framework of the Amazon of Rights project.

2025, Revista Cálamo

Los derechos humanos y lingüísticos de los pueblos indígenas del Ecuador (2019) y El largo camino del Taki Unkuy: Los derechos culturales y lingüísticos de los pueblos indígenas del Ecuador (2017).

2025, Ecological Law in Practice: Case Studies for a Transformative Approach

This ecological law case study focuses on a proposed superphosphate manufacturing complex in Anitápolis, Brazil. The case study method involved deconstruction and analysis of the legal context through the lens of ecological law, and its reconstruction under a regime of ecological law. Anitápolis is a small town located in the State of Santa Catarina, where the Bunge company aims to establish a phosphate mine and a sulphuric acid factory. After a preliminary licence was issued for the project, the NGO Montanha Viva filed a lawsuit to stop it. The local and regional federal courts dismissed the case and Montanha Viva appealed to the Superior Court of Justice, which overruled the lower court's decision and ordered the local court to adjudicate the case. This study shows how decolonial concepts of coloniality of power and epistemologies of the South help explain how colonial relations in economic and political spheres continue to exist even after formal independence from colonizing powers and fail to recognize knowledge systems rooted in the Global South. Foreign investors, such as Bunge in this study, regard nature as an endless resource to advance modernity, without taking into account ecological limits, such as the planetary boundary for phosphorus. Despite environmental provisions in the Brazilian Constitutional Law and case law from Brazil's highest courts, harmful projects such as the Anitápolis project are commonplace. Thus, although the Anitápolis project is not currently active, it remains a possibility, and if revived in line with the original proposal, its approval and implementation would be largely inconsistent with ecological law.

2025, Amicus Curiae Segunda Epoca

Resumen: La presentación de este documento responde a una inquietud profesional acuñada hace algún tiempo. En él se podrá observar el análisis sobre la naturaleza jurídica de las especies animales dentro del orden legal nacional; estudio que tuvo por objetivo fundamentar el esquema argumentativo dentro de los confines de la materia jurídica, soslayando cualquier apasionamiento irreflexivo a favor de los animales. El marco bibliográfico existente sobre el particular, reproduce la errónea naturaleza jurídica de los animales, así que decidí basar mis reflexiones más en el marco legal aplicativo y evitar con ello contribuir a difundir una mala práctica legal. Sin mayor preámbulo invitamos a los lectores a atender las siguientes páginas. Palabras Clave: naturaleza jurídica del animal, análisis, animales, práctica legal, marco legal.

2025, Law and Critique

In the last two decades in Brazil, indigenous peoples have been struggling for their rights through the practice of what they call "retomada de terras" (reappropriation of lands), which consists of reoccupying ancestral lands that were invaded by farmers or other explorers. Inspired by indigenous perspectives, new social movements are struggling for land and territory. After years of reclaiming the legal demarcation of indigenous lands or agrarian reform without a resolution from the State, they decided to act directly in the building of their territories. Within this process, there is also a production of another space, another ecology, another relationship to the land. If Carl Schmitt is right when he says that the original movement that makes law arise is the taking of land, which produces an ordering of space and defines borders that establish internal and external relations, what happens when lands are retaken and borders are reshaped? If we conceive of law in a very modern and technical conception, solely linked to an institutional image, it cannot help us to answer this question. The practice of "retomada" by the Tupinambá people and the agroecological experience of the Web of the People (Teia dos Povos) in Brazil can be an interesting path to investigate how the conditions of existence can be produced beyond abstract rights and more-than-human arrangements can change the way we live together. These practices produce justice spatially in a given territory and bring conceptions of rights rooted in the entanglements of bodies and their territories.

2025, Constitutional Court of Colombia (November 10, 2016) The Atrato River Case

This is an acción de tutela by disadvantaged ethnic communities before the constitutional court to protect the fundamental rights to life, health, water, food security, a healthy environment, the culture and the territory of the active ethnic communities, and to address the health, socio-environmental, ecological and humanitarian crisis in the Atrato River Basin, its tributaries and surrounding territories. The court's syllabus and decision follows the excerpts provided below.

2025

MEAs are becoming more common in government life necessitating greater familiarity by more people. We hope this book will greatly assist in that regard.

2025, Public Humanities: The Manifesto Issue

Should it feel good to get an award for scholar activism? As well-intentioned the recognition of my activism is, it misses the point of what activism is by singling out one person, especially a scholar. The danger with claiming scholar activism as heroic is twofold. First, it makes activists exceptional, implying that society may rely on exceptional individuals instead of valuing the collective work. Second, it glorifies the activism of scholars, as if it were more valuable than that of others while ignoring the hierarchies that empower and protect academia. Instead, we must normalize scholar activism, sharing the load and using our bodies as shields. We'll join the work of activism in constellation and value the power of emotions, embodying our ideas as we grow into activist scholars.

2025

This paper addresses some of the processes shaping the political and cultural context of the Norwegian Sami today. As part of a general process of identity redemption and awareness as an ‘indigenous people’, the ethnic discourse has become intertwined with the rediscovery and enhancement of the past. This work sets out to show how formal ways of rewriting history (archaeology and indigenous museums) and vernacular forms of re-enacting the past (neo- shamanism) are found within a path where political discourse has become inextricably linked to heritage. If today the presence of the Sami is no longer a marginal or ignorable phenomenon, this is also due to the different tactics with which the Sami themselves have in recent years endeavoured to make their past ‘visible’.

2025

Malaysia is one of the environmentally rich and developing countries in the globe which is in fact, very attractive and charming to all. But her bounty has been degrading gradually due to environmental pollution and therefore, the people’s rights are not maintained & ensured properly as guaranteed by their constitution which is also part of the environmental rights in the light of the international environmental laws. Meanwhile, the Government of Malaysia passed some important environmental laws including ‘the Environmental Quality Act 1974; the Environmental Quality Regulations 1989 and the Environmental Quality Order 1989 etc; along with the international environmental laws in order to keep the clean and healthy environment but not yet been properly done in compliance with the above laws. Consequently, sustainability may not be made possible. It may also affect the biodiversities in flora and fauna. Moreover, it is observed that the existing legal mechanisms are not friendly with ...

2025

Crise, modernité, fin du monde ? Impuissance et potentialités du droit pour appréhender les enjeux écologiques Conférence organisée dans le cadre du projet de recherches transversales “Un droit de la fin du monde ? L’influence des... more

2025, Jean Monnet Civil Society Project

The constant criticism of free-trade is inescapable, the lack of action is unbearable, and the future is argued to be incurable. This is the axis where rationality loses to irrationality. The market system has distanced itself from the cooperation ethics that make markets work for all making externalities of the weaker and the unseen, such as future generations.