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

Where to start doing resercah on the rights of nature? My field research has been an opportunity to explore this question. As a lawyer and anthropologist I am convinced that the field must guide the conceptual approach. This is why I will begin with an ethnographic moment from which the proposal of this text arises: begin by asking ourselves about the role of the commons. This question does not necessarily direct us to the rights of nature, but precisely that is the opportunity it presents. It does not imply the existence of rights, but begins with the commons that are where rights are preached upon.

- by
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- Anthropology, Commons, The Rights of Nature

The advent of Rights of Nature (RoN) marks a new paradigm shift in the philosophical approach to nature. As such, the concept has generated enthusiasm amongst environmentalists and legal scholars. This is not surprising since granting legal personhood to nature seems to present itself as a relative easy fix for the multitude of deficiencies of “modern” environmental law. However, when critically assessed, many of the underlying assumptions justifying a shift towards rights-based approaches to nature are open to challenge. In this paper, which takes a more critical stance on the topic of RoN, it is submitted that also the much-criticized modern environmental law is moving towards a recognition of the intrinsic value of nature, puts breaks on property rights, offers remediation actions for pure ecological damage and also increasingly grants environmental ngos wide access to courts. Moreover, on a second level, it is argued that RoN are not a legal revolution and that many of the probl...

- by Julien Bétaille
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- Environmental Law, Political Science, Animal Law, Urban And Regional Planning

This essay aims to provide an introductory account of Earth Jurisprudence as a legal theory and to examine its claims regarding rights of nature. First, two versions of Earth Jurisprudence qua legal theory are identified: a stronger and a moderate version, respectively. Then, the theory’s claims regarding the rights of nature are examined from the perspective of the general theory of rights. The idea of ascribing legal rights to Nature tout court is rejected, while it is acknowledged that sentient animals could be considered persons in law. Finally, the author suggests that instead of rejecting anthropocentrism, as Earth Jurisprudence proposes, the preservation of nature requires that more emphasis is put on human obligations with respect.

- by Lidia Cano Pecharroman
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- Economics, Water, International Law, Rivers

The Scottish law firm Living Law recently published a report analyzing legal developments to recognize rights of nature in the jurisdictions of New Zealand, Colombia, Ecuador, Bolivia and India. The report analyses rights of nature-developments against the backdrop of the Sustainable Development Goals, climate change and the Earth’s Planetary Boundaries and describes how rights of nature developments in one country can stimulate recognition of these rights in other jurisdictions.
The growing momentum for rights of nature seems to signal a shift toward ecocentric values in law, but the enforcement of rights of nature can be challenging, especially when they have to be upheld against well-entrenched property rights. This article looks at the possibility for restorative justice to become another avenue for advancing the rights of nature.

In 2008 Ecuador adopted a new constitution that pioneered rights for nature. This case might seem to have come out of nowhere but there are theoretical, as well as practical, precedents that informed it. This chapter is concerned with discussing the idea of rights for nature, and will do so in the following steps: I will first introduce the idea as such, and show whence its conceptual toolkit is borrowed; this is followed by a presentation of the rights of nature in Ecuador; I will then look at other cases of rights for nature, mapping continuities and differences with Ecuador; finally, I will ask the question that drives this chapter, namely what the rights of nature tell us about the politics of nature: what possibilities are being inaugurated, and what lessons can already be learned? Once we pick out the constitutive elements of the rights of nature, both in theory and practice, we will be in a position to reflect on their meaning and on the promises they hold for an environmental politics of the 21st century.

Rivers and Human Rights: We are the River, the River is Us? As per the recent ruling of the Uttarakhand High Court, the Ganga and Yamuna rivers have rights as a " juristic/legal person/living entity. " It raises a complex set of questions. What does it mean for a river, and its associated natural elements, to have rights? What does it mean for them to have rights as a " person? " How would such rights be implemented, given that rivers and other elements of nature would not be able to themselves claim and defend such rights? What implications do these two decisions have for not just the rivers and those living in/on/along them, but for the relationship between humans and the rest of nature? This study addresses these questions in order to find solutions.

Can nature or natural objects hold rights or be legal persons? Accounts arguing for the legal personhood of natural objects often rely on what is termed the Anything-Goes Approach: more or less any entity can be a legal person, if the legislator or some other appropriate legal actor declares the entity a legal person. The article scrutinizes two arguments that are used to justify the Anything-Goes Approach. According to the Deference Argument, it is up to the legal authorities to determine which entities can be legal persons. Therefore, more or less anything can be a legal person. According to the Corporate Argument, if the law can treat entities like corporations as legal persons, then surely it can treat virtually any entity as a legal person. The article argues that neither of these arguments work, and that natural objects in fact likely cannot be legal persons. Instead, legal arrangements purporting to extend legal personhood to natural objects should be analyzed, for instance, as foundations with collective beneficiaries.

- by Visa Kurki
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- Environmental Ethics, Legal Personality, The Rights of Nature

Drawing on examples of applied Rights of Nature as well as existing environmental laws from Ecuador and beyond, this issue seeks to mend the disconnection between legal abstractions and realities. Bearing in mind that the law is never neutral but is rather a translation of the demands of the (present) time, we asked the authors to draw from their respective fields those perspectives and intricacies that they felt were significant to the discourse on Rights of Nature. The points that they consider are what, we feel, the law should then address, if it aims to be relevant and adequate. We believe that this collec- tion goes a long way towards achieving the goal of obscuring the disparities between legal concepts and actual conditions, and highlights the importance of Rights of Nature in the transformation of human-environment relations.

Future generations, wildlife, and natural resources – collectively referred to as “the voiceless” in this book – are the most vulnerable and least equipped populations to protect themselves from the impacts of global climate change. Domestic and international law protections are beginning to recognize rights and responsibilities that apply to the voiceless community; however, these legal developments have yet to be pursued in a collective manner and have not been considered together in the context of climate change and climate justice. This book first identifies the common vulnerabilities of the voiceless in the Anthropocene era. It then proposes how the law can evolve to protect their interests more effectively through a stewardship-focused and rights-based system derived from the mandate inherent in the concept of sustainable development.

Governments around the world are adopting laws granting Nature rights. Despite expressing common meta-norms transmitted through transnational networks, rights of Nature (RoN) laws differ in how they answer key normative questions, including how to define rights-bearing Nature, what rights to recognize, and who, if anyone, should be responsible for protecting Nature. To explain this puzzle, we compare RoN laws in three of the first countries to adopt such laws: Ecuador, the US, and New Zealand. We present a framework for analyzing RoN laws along two conceptual axes (scope and strength), highlighting how they answer normative questions differently. The article then shows how these differences resulted from the unique conditions and processes of contestation out of which each law emerged. The article contributes to the literature on norm construction by showing how RoN meta-norms circulating globally are infused with differing content as they are put into practice in different contexts, setting the stage for international norm contestation.

Según una opinión bastante generalizada, la ley consiste en un conjunto de normas o reglas. La dificultad de esta representación reside precisamente en el hecho de que la identificación de las normas requiere siempre alguna forma de “interpretación” de los textos en los que se formulan. Se puede entonces pensar en el derecho como un discurso que debe ser analizado mirando el lenguaje en el que está formulado. Esta es la premisa principal en la que se basan los estudios de este volumen. Centrándose en los procesos muy particulares que son la interpretación jurídica y el razonamiento jurídico, así como en conceptos específicos como la representación, la constitución, el soft law o los derechos de la naturaleza, Pierre Brunet propone cada vez examinar, tanto desde un punto de vista teórico como práctico, la forma en que funciona el discurso jurídico, pero también el estilo en que los jueces se expresan a través de sus decisiones.

- by Pierre Brunet
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- Legal Theory, Legal Realism, Legal Reasoning, Constitutionalism

Ecological law is a legal paradigm that is emerging in response to the current
ecological crisis. This thesis explores the main challenges and opportunities in existing
laws, particularly in the context of mining, for a shift to this new paradigm. A synthesis
of the main critiques, scientific and economic concepts, legal scholarship and proposals
that contribute to the theory of ecological law is presented, along with a discussion of the
relationship and potential synergies of ecological law with Indigenous legal traditions and
with Green Legal Theory. An analytical tool to help improve the understanding of what a
shift to ecological law would entail–a lens of ecological law–is proposed, building on
ecological law scholarship. The lens of ecological law consists of three principles of
ecological law: ecocentrism, ecological primacy and ecological justice. This lens is
applied to three different legal approaches to mining in order to reflect on the
implications for a shift to ecological law in this sector: El Salvador’s ban on metal
mining; mineral extraction proposed in Ontario’s Ring of Fire; and mining in the context
of the rights of Mother Earth and vivir bien recognized in Bolivian law. Conclusions on
the obstacles and opportunities for a shift to ecological law in mining, and
recommendations on the ecological law re-formation of mining and on further research
are offered in closing. Ecological law promises to be an important part of building an
ecologically just society.
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Le droit écologique est un paradigme juridique qui émerge en réponse à la crise
écologique actuelle. Cette thèse explore les principaux défis et opportunités des lois
existantes, en particulier dans le contexte de l'exploitation minière, pour passer à ce
nouveau paradigme. Une synthèse des principales critiques, concepts scientifiques et
économiques, études juridiques et propositions contribuant à la théorie du droit
écologique est présentée, ainsi qu'une discussion sur les relations et les synergies
potentielles du droit écologique avec les traditions juridiques autochtones et avec la
Théorie juridique verte (Green Legal Theory). Un outil analytique permettant de mieux
comprendre ce qu’impliquerait un passage au droit écologique - la lentille du droit
écologique - est proposé, en s’appuyant sur les travaux du droit écologique. La lentille du
droit écologique repose sur trois principes du droit écologique: l'écocentrisme, la
primauté écologique et la justice écologique. Cette lentille s’applique à trois approches
juridiques différentes de l’exploitation minière afin de réfléchir aux implications d’un
changement vers le droit écologique dans ce secteur: l’interdiction de l’extraction minière
des métaux au El Salvador; l’extraction minière proposée dans la ceinture de feu de
l’Ontario; et l'exploitation minière dans le contexte des droits de la Mère nourricière et du
concept andin de vivir bien reconnu par la législation bolivienne. Des conclusions sur les
obstacles et les possibilités de passer au droit écologique minier, ainsi que des
recommandations sur la réforme radicale de l’extraction minière s’appuyant sur le droit
écologique et sur des recherches plus poussées sont proposées en conclusion. Le droit
écologique promet d’être un élément important de la construction d’une société
écologiquement juste.

- by Carla Sbert
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- Ecological Economics, Ecology, Mining, Environmental Sustainability

This paper considers some of the recent legislative developments concerning the rights of nature and argues that the environmental rights movement would benefit from more strenuous critical engagement with the question of nature's... more

An overview of the environmental law of Ecuador and its development over the years. The article includes, among others the concept of the rights of nature, environmental impact assessment, statutes in biodiversity, pollution and forest... more

- by Maria Antonia Tigre
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- Comparative Law, Environmental Law, Ecuador, Amazonian Ecuador

This article poses the US-led War on Drugs as an ecocidal force, whereby certain species and ecosystems are extinguished in the name of the ‘greater good’. In this never-ending war, environmental violence is intertwined with political violence; when nonhuman lives, including those of plants, become subject to eradication, a co-criminalisation occurs as natural ecosystems and human life cannot be separated. I examine how these forms of violence are depicted and the implications for visual evidence, forensics and legal forums in the context of the aerial fumigation of the coca plant in Colombia. The text traverses a series of frames of representation, each operating through different media and at different scales, in order to unfold the complex relationship between violence, law and the visible. What would it mean to broaden our terms of violence to include nonhuman subjects, and actions such as defoliation? I argue for new forms of evidentiary truth that might facilitate a reorientation of political and juridical forums to include ‘earthly memory’.

- by Hannah Meszaros Martin
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- Colombian Politics, Ecocide, War on Drugs, Visual Evidence

In 2017, multiple claims and declarations from around the legal world appeared to signal a tipping point in the global acceptance of a new and evolving legal status for nature. Whether it was litigation in the United States, India, and Colombia, or legislation emanating from New Zealand and Australia, the law seems to be grappling with a new normative order in relation to the legal status of nature. However, this shift has been a long time coming, being at least forty- five years since Christopher Stone famously asked whether trees should have legal standing.1
This Article explores what this emerging Ecological Jurisprudence means for the legal personhood of rivers. Nature, the environment, and even single complex ecosystems, are seldom easily quantifiable as bounded entities with geographically clear borders. Within the complex spectrum of establishing where a legal subject ends and another begins, however, rivers are more easily identifiable. A river’s very being is premised on historicized boundaries that measure its watery ambit from riverbed to riverbank. Still, rivers elude a final, clearly defined, and uncontroversial description. As a result, they inhabit a liminal space, one that is at the same time geographically bounded, yet metaphorically transcendent, physically shifting, and culturally porous.
Drawing on comparative case studies from Ecuador, Colombia, India, New Zealand, the United States, and Australia, this Article explores the deep and often murky bond of the river and us. This relational, ancient, and ultimately environmentally urgent bond forms the prism through which the rich story of legal personhood, ontological change, and the consequential nitty-gritty of river governance is told. Indeed, this complex story is best heard through the metaphor of song, since “[i]f we are to take metaphor seriously, we must explore its poetic dimension, the persuasive power of its rhetoric, coupled with its aesthetic appeal.”2 In seeking to discern a river’s legal personality, we ask, can we hear the rivers sing?

- by Cristy Clark and +3
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- Rivers, Water governance, Legal Personhood, The Rights of Nature

Tanto en Naciones Unidas como en la Unión Europea un nuevo
paradigma llama a la puerta: el ecocentrismo, que plantea nuevas formas
de convergencia armónica entre los seres humanos y la naturaleza
de la que forma parte. El giro ecocéntrico de Naciones Unidas puede
detectarse en la evoluci´n del tratamiento ecológico desde la Conferencia
de Estocolmo (1972) hasta la adopción del programa Armonía
con la Naturaleza (2009) y la Agenda 2030 y los Objetivos del Desarrollo
Sostenible (2015). En el caso de la Unión Europea, encontramos
antecedentes desde la Cumbre de París (1972) y, de manera más específica,
en los tratados a partir de Maastricht (1992); pero el elemento
diferencial se dio con la aprobación del Pacto Verde Europeo (2019)
y las medidas para la transición ecológica. Es en ese marco cuando
podemos referirnos a una revolución verde y a las condiciones para el
reconocimiento de la naturaleza como sujeto de derechos.

¿La sola innovación puede ser considerada como un avance? La carga emotiva de lo “nuevo”, de lo “diferente” suele arrastrar una reacción entusiasta en muchos sectores, a la par suele provocar más de una resistencia. En el tema derechos de la naturaleza se ha desarrollado una literatura jurídica cada vez más extensa que la pondera como una contribución ecuatoriana al pensamiento jurídico mundial.
Este trabajo es una revisión de la innovación constitucional, sus fundamentos, las categorías jurídicas involucradas, para realizar una evaluación inicial sobre el tema y sentar algunas bases a fin de entender si puede considerarse como una innovación trascendental o es una retórica jurídica al servicio de un proyecto político.

- by Farith Simon
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- Constitutional Law, The Rights of Nature, Derechos de la naturaleza

en Estupiñán, Liliana; Storini, Claudia; Martínez Dalmau, Rubén; y De Carvalho Dantas, Fernando, “La Naturaleza como sujeto de derechos en el constitucionalismo democrático”. Universidad Libre, Bogotá, 2019, págs. 31-48.
https://repository.unilibre.edu.co/handle/10901/16011. Publicado también en Fernando De Carvalho Dantas, Liliana Estupiñán, Rubén Martínez Dalmau y Claudia Storini, “Derechos de la naturaleza: Teoría, práctica y política”. Pireo, Valencia, 2019.

— In 2008, Ecuador became the world's first country to include rights of Nature (RoN) in its constitution. The constitution presents RoN as a tool for building a new form of sustainable development based on the Andean Indigenous concept sumak kawsay (buen vivir in Spanish), which is rooted in the idea of living in harmony with Nature. While much is written on the ethical arguments regarding RoN (and buen vivir), few studies analyze how RoN might be implemented. We fill this gap by explaining why some efforts to apply Ecuador's RoN laws succeeded while others failed. We compare 13 RoN lawsuits using an original framework for analyzing the pathways and strategies RoN advocates (and their opponents) use to build (and counter) momentum behind judicial processes meant to buttress the enforcement of contested RoN norms. The case descriptions and analysis draw on primary documents and in-depth interviews conducted during 2014–15. Through process tracing, we identified key structural conditions and strategic decisions shaping the outcomes in each case. Our findings as of 2016 reveal unexpected pathways of influence involving a symbiotic process among civil society , state agencies, and the courts. Surprisingly, civil society pressure was the least successful pathway, as activists lost high-profile lawsuits. Nevertheless, they facilitated judicial momentum by working on less-politicized local cases and training lower-level judges. Instrumental use of RoN laws by the state produced unintended consequences, including establishing precedent and educating judges. Knowledgable judges are unilaterally applying RoN in their sentencing, even when neither claimants nor defendants allege RoN violations. Ecuador's cases demonstrate how ''weak " RoN laws can strengthen, providing important insight into the global contestation over sustainable development and the strategies and legal tools being used to advance a post-neoliberal development agenda rooted in harmony with nature.

On January 27, 2022, the Constitutional Court of Ecuador (the Court) granted judgment in the case 253-20-JH, called “Rights of Nature and Animals as Subjects of Rights, Estrellita Monkey Case,” popularly known as the Estrellita case.1 The case generated high expectations because the Court selected it for the development of binding jurisprudence. Since its release, the case has received broad public attention due to its ruling and media outlets having announced that Ecuador is the first country where animals have legal rights. Given the importance of the Estrellita case, an analysis from an animal rights perspective is necessary. First, I will summarize the Rights of Nature under the Ecuadorian Constitution and the history of the Estrellita case. Secondly, I will explain the ruling of the Estrellita case, how the Court recognized individual animals as legal subjects, what rights of wild animals were recognized, the interspecies principle, and the ecological interpretation principle. Thirdly, I will argue why Rights of Nature is not the correct framework for the achievement of rights for animals, mainly because the ecological interpretation principle has the effect of undermining the full realization of those rights. Finally, I will present positive outcomes for animals in Ecuador that derive from the Estrellita case, as the Rights of Nature framework has a symbolic and instrumental value that one can use for the benefit of animals.

- by Marcia Condoy Truyenque
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- Animal Ethics, Animal Welfare, Animal Law, Animal Rights

Getting public opinion to see 'mining' and 'Nature's Rights' as non-contradictory and even equivalent and harmonious, calls for far-reaching power strategies. Nature was entitled to rights by Ecuador's Constitution at about the same time that the Government began promoting mining as central to Ecuador's future. Building this equivalence to make 'mining mean nature', and materialize large-scale mining in the Quimsacocha páramo wetlands, the State and its institutions tested new tactics to manage territory, coined new imaginaries and subjectivities, and limited indigenous/rural political participation. In response, communities started to dispute these governmentality strategies through political practices that framed new meanings of territory and identity. They use formal political and legal arenas but, above all, their day-today practices. This article analyzes forms of power and counter-power in the Quimsacocha páramo mining conflict, through the four different, interrelated 'arts of government' (Foucault, 2008) and mutual strategies by promoters and detractors of extractive industry who, in apparent paradox, both appeal to Nature's Rights. We conclude that using Nature's Rights to promote mega-mining manifests the limitations of social and environmental rights recognition under neoliberal gov-ernance, and the tensions inherent in Nature's Rights themselves. However, anti-extraction struggles like Quimsacocha's critically make visible as well as challenge the development model and economic system that is implicit in the debate over Nature's Rights, inviting us to rethink the socio-natural order and foster more just, equitable alternatives.

- by Carolina Valladares and +1
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- Rural Sociology, Social Movements, Water, Political Ecology

Nell’ambito della XIII Convención Internacional sobre Medio Ambiente y Desarrollo, si è svolto il V Congreso de Política, Justicia y Derecho Ambiental, nel quale ho tenuto la mia ponencia dal titolo “El importante papel de la cultura y la tradición en el derecho ambiental”, Miércoles 7 de julio, Sesión: mañana, Sala 7. Ministerio de Ciencia, Tecnología y Medio Ambiente, Panel Gobernabilidad Ambiental, 11:25-12:10. Il Programa Científico è disponibile al seguente link: http://www.cubambiente.com/es/scientific_program Si veda: p. 151.

- by Livio Perra
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- Cultural Studies, Environmental Law, Philosophy Of Law, Culture

The rights of nature can be a powerful tool for thinking anew our relationships with so-called "natural beings" conceived as political subjects, and for protecting them against exploitative corporate interests. In this paper, I first inquire into the theory behind this idea and the underlying conceptions of political subjectivity and representation allowing for giving rights to nature. I then analyze some actual cases where rights have been given to nature - notably in Ecuador, Bolivia, the United States, New-Zealand and India - and their relations with the theory.

- by Emmanuel Debaty
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- Philosophy, Political Philosophy, Political Theory, Environmental Studies

Since the momentous release of the Montecristi Constitution of Ecuador in 2008, which recognised Nature, or Pacha Mama, as a subject of rights, the rights of Nature movement across the world has gained exponential momentum, with numerous jurisdictions worldwide now recognising some form of legal subjectivity vested upon Nature. In particular, since 2017, river personhood has dominated news headlines around the world as one of the most recognisable forms of Nature’s novel subjectivity. The emergence of legal personhood for nature, however, has been far from uncontroversial, and numerous critiques have been advanced against the use of such a legal category – traditionally applied to humans and their abstract creations (such as States and corporations) – to the natural world, resulting in numerous calls for an alternative category of legal personhood (one that some rights of Nature advocates have termed an ‘environmental person’). Against the backdrop of this emerging debate, this paper acknowledges the work undertaken by the Martuwarra Fitzroy River Council (Martuwarra Council), which was established in 2018 in the Kimberley region of Western Australia by six independent Indigenous nations to preserve, promote and protect their ancestral River from ongoing destructive ‘development’. The Council believes it is time to recognise the pre-existing and continuing legal authority of Indigenous law, or ‘First Law’, in relation to the River, in order to preserve its integrity through a process of legal decolonisation. First Law differs markedly from its colonial counterpart, as its principles are not articulated in terms of rules, policies and procedures, but rather through stories. This paper, therefore, begins with a dialogical translation of one First Law story relating to Yoongoorrookoo,1 the ancestral serpent being,2 to create a semantic bridge between two apparently distant legal worldviews. A dialogical comparative analysis is then followed to posit and explore the concept of an ‘ancestral person’ as a novel comparative tool that may be able not only to capture the idea of Nature as a legal subject, but also complex Indigenous worldviews that see Nature – in this case instantiated in the Martuwarra – as an ancestral being enmeshed in a relationship of interdependence and guardianship between the human and the nonhuman world. To instantiate and embody such relationships, the paper directly, and somewhat provocatively, acknowledges the River itself, the Martuwarra RiverOfLife, as the primary participant in such dialogue, an embodied non-human co-author who began a conversation then left to human writers to continue.

- by Elizabeth J Macpherson and +3
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- Environmental Law, Indigenous Peoples Rights, Environmental Sustainability, First Nations Law

Here is a synthesis of ten years of study, research and writing on the psychology/pathology of the climate crisis. My hypothesis is that climate trauma is a new and superordinate trauma arising from the grievous wounding of a living planet, of which we are all integral cells and organelles, and that this is triggering all of our unresolved cultural and generational traumas, demanding resolution. My synthesis is that a post-modern, holistic indigeneity is emerging in non-Indigenous peoples, and that by adopting an attitude of radical humility and an ethic of shared responsibility, we may become indigenous to Gaia, which will in turn affect all our relations, and create an effective bridge of communication and understanding between Indigenous peoples and the dominant, settler class of peoples, which in turn will facilitate the recovery of human nature. With appropriate reconciliation and reparations in relation to both Indigenous peoples and Nature, this recovery of human nature will then become the path of resolving and recovering from our collective, climate trauma.

- by Zhiwa Woodbury
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- Indigenous Studies, Social Sciences, Climate Change, Ecopsychology

El texto se centra en la necesidad de desarrollar normas internacionales vinculantes que aseguren el respeto por parte de las empresas transnacionales respecto de los derechos humanos, que pongan fin a la impunidad de estos actores económicos, así como para garantizar el acceso a la justicia para las víctimas y la reparación de las violaciones. Al analizar el caso de Chevron, el texto refleja que, si bien existen diferentes iniciativas a nivel internacional destinadas a alentar a las empresas transnacionales a comportarse de manera respetuosa con los derechos humanos, estas iniciativas siguen siendo insuficientes, ya sea por su falta de obligatoriedad o por su carácter parcial, dado que siguen dependiendo de la voluntad de estos actores económicos transnacionales. El caso Chevron y los laudos recaídos a lo largo del proceso arbitral de la empresa contra la República del Ecuador, muestran una paradoja alarmante: ciertos derechos, como el acceso a la justicia, diseñados para proteger los derechos humanos en su conjunto se están utilizando para salvaguardar los beneficios de determinadas empresas trasnacionales. Este caso, junto con muchos otros crímenes corporativos, apoya la idea de que el proceso de la Resolución 26/9, el llamado Binding Treaty, es actualmente el único que puede garantizar el acceso a la justicia y los recursos para las víctimas. PALABRAS CLAVE. Chevron, tratado bilateral de inversión, acceso a la justicia, mecanismos de reparación, Tercer Pilar de los Principios Rectores, derechos humanos, Binding Treaty. ABSTRACT. The text is focus on the need to develop internationally binding standards on transnational corporations and human rights in order to bring their impunity to an end, as well as ensuring access to justice for the victims and the reparation of the consequences. By analysing the Chevron case, the text reflects that although there are different initiatives at international level aimed at encouraging transnational companies to behave respectfully, these initiatives continue to be insufficient, either because of their lack of obligation or because of their partial nature, dependent on the voluntariness of these transnational economic actors. The Chevron case and the arbitration awards adopted during the arbitration proceedings against the Republic of Ecuador show an alarming paradox: certain rights, such as access to justice, designed to protect human rights as a whole, are being used to full effect to safeguard the profits of economic entities. This case, together with many other crimes, supports the idea that the process of Resolution 26/9, the so called Binding Treaty, is currently the only one potentially capable of ensuring the access to justice and remedies to victims.

In this article, the author analyses the rights of nature and the guardianship exercised by the human being. For this purpose, he first observes and analyses the rights of nature and its entities. Moreover, the reflection is aimed at finding a category where these rights can be included. From the analysis of these issues, attention shifts to the need to understand the role that human beings play in the framework of the rights of nature and its entities. Nature and its entities alone are unable to take care of their interests, in particular to claim respect for their rights and to invoke restoration in the event that damage occurs. human beings make up for the incapacity of nature or its entities through specific tools. The author analyses the various tools that are used in some countries, leads them back to a single macro-category and defines men acting for natural entities as guardians of the rights of nature and its entities.

- by Livio Perra
- •
- Environmental Law, Sociology of Law, Natural Resources, Philosophy Of Law

The conception of property at the basis of Hegel's conception of abstract right seems committed to a problematic form of "possessive individualism." It seems to conceive of right as the expression of human mastery over nature and as based upon an irreducible opposition of person and nature, rightful will and rightless thing. However, this chapter argues that Hegel starts with a form of possessive individualism only to show that it undermines itself. This is evident in the way Hegel unfolds the nature of property as it applies to external things as well as in the way he explains our self-ownership of our own bodies and lives. Hegel develops the idea of property to a point where it reaches a critical limit and encounters the "true right" that life possesses against the "formal" and "abstract right" of property. Ultimately, Hegel's account suggests that nature should precisely not be treated as a rightless object at our arbitrary disposal but acknowledged as the inorganic body of right.

- by Thomas Khurana
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- Human Rights, Property Law, Property, Hegel

Il volume si sofferma sulla cosmovisione andina del buen vivir (sumak kawsay e suma qamaña negli idiomi locali) e sulle sue manifestazioni sul piano sociale, ambientale, giuridico, economico. Al pari di altre culture indigene, questa cosmovisione si fonda su un approccio olistico alla vita, dove la soddisfazione dei bisogni primari degli esseri umani avviene nel rispetto della collettività e dell’ambiente in cui si vive e dove Madre Terra non può essere sfruttata indebitamente.
L’obiettivo del volume è di valutare, con un taglio multidisciplinare, la portata di questo modello alternativo allo sviluppo occidentale nelle società latinoamericane, in specie Ecuador e Bolivia ove il buen vivir è stato costituzionalizzato, e di cogliere differenze e somiglianze con le più recenti tendenze rinvenibili in ambito europeo e anche internazionale.

- by Serena Baldin
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- Sociology, Environmental Sociology, Latin American Studies, Law

It is extremely dangerous to resist extractive megaprojects in Latin America. The intensive accumulation of natural resources for export on global markets has long characterized Latin America, but the boom in exports of raw commodities since 2000 has accentuated a violent history of dispossession. As of 2020, Latin America represents 60% of nature defenders killed in the world. Governments license natural resources at unprecedented rates, pushing land- and water-grabbing to new levels. Resistance against mining, oil, hydroelectric, and agribusiness projects is framed as antidevelopment and repressed with brutal violence. Governments are expanding the extractive frontier fast, promoting megaprojects in the name of national development or to fund social policies, a so-called redistributive neo-extractivism. This extractive consensus has increased social conflict across the region; but it has also inspired new forms of resistance. Resistance, which is mostly Indigenous and largely female, is a political struggle against extractive industries that represent ongoing forms of colonial dispossession. Resistance against extractivism focuses on the defense of nature as much as on rights to self-determination, a central element to shape a postextractive world. Ecuador is a case in point. The country recognizes international rights to prior consultation and established the first rights of nature framework in the world, yet it criminalizes nature defenders as it continues to expand the extractive frontier. The emerging rights of nature framework, like mining bans, are alternatives to extractivism that offer insights into experiences of resistance in the highlands of Ecuador. The Rio Blanco mine, an iconic megaproject financed by China, was suspended in 2018 thanks to a solid network of resistance that secured a broad mobilization of rural communities and urban youth, lawyers and academics, blending street protest with legal action. The Rio Blanco case shows the complementarity of various strategies, the potential of courts as allies, and the powerful coordination between social movements and government to contest structural dispossession.

- by manuela L picq
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- Latin American Studies, Indigenous Studies, Water resources, Informed Consent

This monograph aims to analyze environmental protection systems of Ecuador and Bolivia. In these systems, there is a transition from anthropocentrism to biocentrism. In particular, nature becomes a subject of rights. These systems are the result of the reflections that emerged in political and legal debates, due to the entry of the values of the indigenous peoples’ culture, where nature is of considerable importance. The author investigates the genesis of these environmental protection systems and how the cultures of the peoples who make up the States found equal space to express their values. The environmental protection systems of Ecuador and Bolivia appear as complete: legal systems recognize nature as a subject, affirm its rights and there is a wide range of judicial instruments and actions to claim in respect of them. After analyzing these systems in all their parts, the author addresses the issues that emerged. From the analysis carried out in this monograph, the fact that emerges is that the rights of nature constitute an effective way to defend the environment. Culture becomes the key to dealing with current environmental questions and contributes to the evolution of law. Law is able to renew itself, abandon anthropocentric logics, rethink categories and build two new and complete environmental protection systems.

- by Livio Perra
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- Environmental Law, Cultural Heritage, Bolivia, Ecuador

The government of Evo Morales is emblematic of the new left governments in Latin America that emerged at the beginning of the 21st century. Growing out of a crisis of the neoliberal project in Latin America as a whole and Bolivia in particular, Morales’ government has overseen a period of economic and political stability in a country not known for either. Globally, Morales has become associated with the ‘rights of nature’ discourse and radical environmentalism, being named the ‘World Hero of Mother Earth’ by the General Assembly of the United Nations. At the same time, however, the model of development pursued by his government has continued to rely on the extractive industries to produce economic growth. This has produced fractures within the social movements on whose behalf Morales claims to govern. My argument in this dissertation is that it is only possible to understand the contradictions of environmental policy in the Morales era by reflecting on the particular features of Bolivian society. During his tenure, the ‘defence of Mother Earth’ has been vitiated by a commitment to territorial sovereignty and national development, which the government has justified by reference to what I call the ‘right to develop’. It is only by understanding the interaction of these two competing ‘rights’, I will claim, that we can analyse the nature of Morales’ project thus far and assess its prospects for long term political and environmental sustainability. I also argue that critical assessment of the Bolivian experience under Morales can illuminate wider challenges facing political movements committed to elaborating an environmentally sustainable and socially equitable development model in the 21st century.

- by Callum McCormick
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- Latin American Studies, Development Studies, Environmental Politics, Bolivia
- by Johannes Waldmüller
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- Ecuador, Good Living, Buen Vivir, Buen vivir, The Rights of Nature

In the context where the globe is increasingly calculable and rendered as a resource, the World of Matter project has created a series of open platforms for engaged public discourse. An international art and media project, it asks how contemporary art and media practices might provide alternatives to both the privatised and patented forms of knowledge gathering at play in extractive and agrarian industries and the anthropocentric focus of many debates around the earth’s ‘natural resources’. It does so through exhibitions, an online multi-media platform, conferences and critical writing. In this light, the project has sought both to make visible the devastating force of capitalist globalisation by tracing the red threads that connect extractive industries, research and development, and agri-business around the world, and to provide a platform for active critical and aesthetic engagement on questions of ecology, new materialism, and nature-cultures.

- by Krista Lynes and +1
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- Cultural Studies, Visual Studies, Contemporary Art, Ecology

With the onset of climate change, the prospect of mass extinction, and the closing win dow of opportunity to take meaningful action, a growing number of activists, lawyers, sci entists, policy-makers, and everyday people are calling for Rights of Nature (RoN) to be legally recognized as a way to transform human legal and governance systems to priori tize ecological sustainability. Over the past decade, RoN has gone from being a radical idea espoused only by a handful of marginalized actors to a legal strategy seriously con sidered in a wide variety of domestic and international policy arenas. In January 2021, at least 185 legal provisions recognizing RoN existed in 17 countries spanning five conti nents, and 50 more RoN laws were pending in a dozen other countries. RoN is also recog nized in numerous international policy documents. After defining RoN, this chapter exam ines how different kinds of actors have organized in global networks to advance RoN in different policy arenas through distinct pathways. This has caused RoN to be structured and implemented differently in distinct contexts. The chapter examines this variation, comparing cases from around the world. It highlights the implications of structuring RoN as a set of unique substantive rights for ecosystems versus extending legal personhood (a set of rights designed for humans). It concludes by examining the relationship between RoN and human rights-including environmental rights, Indigenous rights, and economic rights-and the implications for reconceptualizing sustainable development to prioritize ecological sustainability.

- by Craig Kauffman
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- Environmental Law, Sustainable Development, Ecological Laws, The Rights of Nature

Is it possible to justify resource extractivism to provide progressive welfare politics and still respect the constitutional rights of nature? The Indigenous concept of Sumak Kawsay on human beings living in harmony with each other and the environment is the fundamental framing of the new constitutions of Ecuador and Bolivia. These constitutional reforms embrace strengthened proper rights of nature and similarly of ethnic rights. However, the same constitutions grant the State the right to exploit and commercialize natural resources and extractivism has increased. This study revises the tensions between welfare politics, extractivism and the rights of nature and the Indigenous peoples in the new constitutional settings of Bolivia and, particularly, Ecuador. The article argues that Sumak Kawsay challenges dominating understandings of the concepts of welfare, common good and development, and likewise that a pragmatic approach is applied by national governments towards the constitutional rights of nature amidst other human values.

- by Rickard Lalander
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- Sociology, Indigenous Studies, Environmental Studies, Bolivia

El presente ensayo tiene por objetivo evidenciar si la Iniciativa Yasuní ITT, según su diseño, se ha convertido en un proyecto que permitiría el ejercicio de los derechos de la naturaleza según los contenidos constitucionales respecto al régimen del desarrollo y ambiente, con los efectos jurídicos que ello implica y en un marco de ausencia de regulación de los mismos. Y, de ser así, determinar si existen amenazas al ejercicio de dichos derechos, y por tanto a la implementación de la propuesta.

This article examines recent court rulings recognizing the rights of rivers in Colombia and India, and the unique institutional structures created to protect those rights. The following cases illustrate how court rulings have institutionalized Rights of Nature (RoN) norms that are circulating globally, even in countries that lack law explicitly recognizing RoN. While citing international precedent, judges strategically interpreted existing laws to uphold RoN norms circulating globally. Consequently, the cases show an evolution in the legal doctrines invoked to justify RoN. Judges in both cases based their ruling on New Zealand's model for institutionalizing RoN. This model recognizes an ecosystem as a legal person, establishes a guardian body, and embeds this guardian body within a multi-stakeholder integrated ecosystem management institution. That institution then manages the ecosystem in a way that is consistent with RoN principles. However, the Indian and Colombian cases adapted the New Zealand model to different degrees, partly due to the distinct legal doctrines invoked. This article analyzes the impact of invoking different legal doctrines to establish distinct guardianship arrangements and offers several lessons.

- by Craig Kauffman
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- Environmental Law, Ecological Laws, The Rights of Nature, Rights of Nature

"Environmental law finds itself in a very delicate position. Its role is to elaborate rules and principles for addressing multiple ecological crises, yet environmental law is structurally and conceptually rooted in a broader legal tradition thoroughly implicated in the domination and ‘othering’ of nature. The ecological worldview challenges the roots of modern law, casting critical light upon Cartesian dualism and the epistemology of mastery. While environmental law has incorporated some of the new knowledge offered by ecology into its normative texture, and has shifted its focus from fragmented parts and individuals (e.g. individual species) towards wholes, relationships and complexity (e.g. biodiversity, ecosystems processes), it remains far from being a comprehensive translation of the ecological worldview into law. Against this background, this article will discuss and compare two frameworks - Earth Jurisprudence and Law for Nature –
both of which aim to elaborate an ecological philosophy of law. It will be suggested that while their critical premises are similarly grounded on ecological critiques of central legal categories such as subject (persons), object (things) and property (ownership), their respective ethical stances
and central strategies are quite different: Earth Jurisprudence aims at articulating an ecocentric narrative in which nature is understood as a plurality of legal subjects endowed with rights; Law for nature starts from a concept of ecological normativity, which through a continuous transformative process re-orients law, and grounds the relationship between subject and object in the concept of patrimonium. The tensions between subjective rights and objective norms, between individual and community, and between practical action and long-lasting, radical reorientation, operate as guides for the discussion offered here."

- by Vito De Lucia
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- Law, Jurisprudence, Philosophy, Political Philosophy

An increasing number of court rulings and legislation worldwide are recognizing rights of nature to be protected and preserved. Recognizing these rights also entails the recognition that nature has the right to stand in court and to be represented for its defense. This is still an incipient field and every step taken in this direction constitutes a precedent from which to learn and on which to base new rulings and legislation initiatives. Within this doctrine, rivers seem to be on the spotlight and court rulings on the rights of rivers are the ones setting precedent. These cases have taken place in New Zealand, Ecuador, India, and Colombia. This review looks into what all these rulings and legislation worldwide say about the rights of nature and what legal and systemic considerations should be taken into account as the recognition of the rights of nature moves forward.

- by Lidia Cano Pecharroman
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- Water, International Law, Rivers, Environmental Sustainability

Propuesta de modelo de gestión para los derechos de la naturaleza

- by Antonio Troya Jaramillo and +2
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- The Rights of Nature

Ces dernières années, une intuition remarquable a eu un retentissement important : le droit serait capable d'accueillir des visions du monde, des cosmo-logies autres que naturalistes, c'est-à-dire autres que celles qui voient le monde fait de discontinuités entre humains et non humains, entre humains et entités de la nature. La plasticité de la personnalité juridique, les fictions et opérations que le droit promeut permettraient non seulement d'accueillir des entités non humaines en tant que sujets de droit, mais aussi de proposer de nouvelles régulations face à la crise écologique. Cet « animisme juridique » revêt pourtant diverses formes qu'il faut savoir mettre en tension pour bien comprendre la portée des reconfigurations ontologiques en jeu. Cet article opère cette mise en tension en comparant, grâce à une analyse anthropologique, les cas de l'Équateur et de la Bolivie afin de montrer qu'il y a au moins deux manières de penser ces types d'excursions juridiques. La première-celle de l'Équateur-montre un animisme juridique fonctionnant comme une jonction entre des conceptions traditionnelles/autochtones de la nature et des opérations techniques/modernes du droit, débouchant alors sur un droit de la nature technique, opérationnel et atomisé. La deuxième-celle de la Bolivie-bien qu'elle soit moins techniquement opérationnelle, instaure un hyper-sujet, la Pachamama, qui fonctionne comme architecture de diplomatie cosmologique, instaurant un tiers garant sacré et dessinant de nouveaux territoires d'inaliénabilité.

- by Diego Landivar
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- Anthropology Of Nature, Anthropocene, The Rights of Nature, Ontological Turn