Rights of nature law is the codification and other implementations of the legal and jurisprudential theory of the rights of nature. This legal school of thought describes inherent rights as associated with ecosystems and species, similar to the concept of fundamental human rights. The early 2000s saw a significant expansion of rights of nature law, in the form of constitutional provisions, treaty agreements, national and subnational statutes, local laws, and court decisions. As of 2022, nature's rights laws exist at the local to national levels in 39 countries, including in Canada, at least seven Tribal Nations in the U.S. and Canada, and over 60 cities and counties throughout the United States. The total number of initiatives was 409 as of June 2021 and 495 as of May 2024. The EcoJurisprudence Monitor lists over 540 as of early 2025.[1]
Treaties
New Zealand Legal standing for natural systems in New Zealand arose alongside new attention paid to long-ignored treaty agreements with the Indigenous Maori. In August 2012, a treaty agreement signed with the Maori iwi recognized the Whanganui River and tributaries as a legal entity, an "indivisible and living whole" with its own standing. The national Te Awa Tupua Act was enacted in March 2017 to further formalize this status. In 2013, the Te Urewera Forest treaty agreement similarly recognized the legal personhood of the Forest, with the Te Urewera Act signed into law in 2014 to formalize this status. In 2017 a treaty settlement with the Maori was signed that recognized Mount Taranaki as "a legal personality, in its own right". Each of these developments advanced the indigenous principle that the ecosystems are living, spiritual beings with intrinsic value, incapable of being owned in an absolute sense.
Constitutional law
Ecuador
In 2008, the people of Ecuador amended their Constitution to recognize the inherent rights of nature, or Pachamama. The new text arose in large part as a result of cosmologies of the indigenous rights movement and actions to protect the Amazon, consistent with the concept of sumak kawsay ("buen vivir" in Spanish, "good living" in English), or encapsulating a life in harmony with nature with humans as part of the ecosystem. Among other provisions, Article 71 states that "Nature or Pachamama, where life is reproduced and exists, has the right to exist, persist, maintain itself and regenerate its own vital cycles, structure, functions and its evolutionary processes." The Article adds enforcement language as well, stating that "Any person... may demand the observance of the rights of the natural environment before public bodies", and echoing Christopher Stone, Article 72 adds that “Nature has the right to be completely restored... independent of the obligation... to compensate people”.
Judicial decisions
Bangladesh In 2019, the High Court of Bangladesh ruled on a case addressing pollution of and illegal development along the Turag River, an upper tributary of the Buriganga. Among its findings, the high court recognized the river as a living entity with legal rights, and it further held that the same would apply to all rivers in Bangladesh. The court ordered the National River Protection Commission to serve as the guardian for the Turag and other rivers.
Colombia
Colombia has not adopted statutes or constitutional provisions addressing nature's rights (as of 2019). However, this has not prevented Colombian courts from finding nature's rights as inherent. In a 2016 case, the Colombia Constitutional Court ordered cleanup of the polluted Atrato River, stating that nature is a "true subject of rights that must be recognized by states and exercised... for example, by the communities that inhabit it or have a special relationship with it”. The court added that humans are “only one more event within a long evolutionary chain [and] in no way... owner of other species, biodiversity or natural resources, or the fate of the planet". In 2018, the Colombia Supreme Court took up a climate change case by a group of children and young adults that also raised fundamental rights issues. In addition to making legal findings related to human rights, the court found that the Colombian Amazon is a "'subject of rights', entitled to protection, conservation, maintenance and restoration". It recognized the special role of Amazon deforestation in creating greenhouse gas emissions in Colombia, and as a remedy ordered the nation and its administrative agencies to ensure a halt to all deforestation by 2020. The court further allocated enforcement power to the plaintiffs and affected communities, requiring the agencies to report to the communities and empowering them to inform the court if the agencies were not meeting their deforestation targets.
Ecuador A significant body of case law has been expanding in Ecuador to implement the nation's constitutional provisions regarding the rights of nature. Examples include lawsuits in the areas of biodigestor pollution, impaired flow in the Vilcabamba River, and hydropower.
Germany In August 2024, the Regional Court (Landgericht) of Erfurt became the first German court to recognize rights of Nature under the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights in an important decision.
India
As in Colombia, as of 2019 no statutes or constitutional provisions in India specifically identified rights of nature. Nevertheless, the India Supreme Court in 2012 set the stage for cases to come before it on rights of nature, finding that "Environmental justice could be achieved only if we drift away from the principle of anthropocentric to ecocentric... humans are part of nature and non-human has intrinsic value." The Uttarakhand High Court applied the principle of ecocentric law in 2017, recognizing the legal personhood of the Ganga and Yamuna rivers and ecosystems, and calling them "living human entities" and juridical and moral persons. The court quickly followed with similar judgments for the glaciers associated with the rivers, including the Gangotri and Yamunotri, and other natural systems. While the India Supreme Court stayed the Ganga and Yamuna judgment at the request of local authorities, those authorities supported the proposed legal status in concept, but were seeking "implementation guidance".
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