Literature Review

Global emergence of Rights of Nature (RoN) has gained momentum since Ecuador became the first country to constitutionally recognize it in 2008. The shift from perceiving nature as an object, to granting it legal subjecthood, can revolutionize protection of ecological systems. In 2021, Ecuador's Constitutional Court issued a landmark ruling, halting mining in the Los Cedros Protected Forest.

This chapter adopts a linguistic approach to reflect on rights of Nature in EU law. It proposes a study of the occurrence and frequency in EU legislative acts of a range of terms linked to Nature. The TEU and TFEU treaty texts are first studied for the frequency and location of selected terms linked to Nature, and the search is then extended to delegated secondary law EU acts. The study reveals an absence of explicit references to rights of Nature.

Rights of Nature is gradually emerging as a novel template for environmental protection and nature conservation in several countries. Arising from distinct histories and ways of conceiving and dwelling in the world, countries like Ecuador and New Zealand have ushered in a new era for environmental governance by explicitly laying down legal rights and/or personhood for nature as a whole, for ecosystems, and for more-than-human populations. For a considerable time, however, attempts to operationalise rights of Nature remained absent in Europe. In the introduction to this edited volume, it is argued that the recent years have seen a steady increase in attention to the rights of Nature in Europe not only in the academic field but also in explicit legislation. These efforts have borne fruit, notably with the passing of a law in the Spanish Parliament in September 2022, explicitly granting legal personhood and rights to Mar Menor, a saltwater lagoon which has suffered severe degradation during the past decades. After having sketched the substantive underpinnings of the rights of Nature, this introduction posits that the future years will witness an exponential amount of encounters between different conceptions of the rights of Nature and societal institutions on the European continent. In an attempt to further grasp the meaning and significance of the recent arrival of rights of Nature in Europe, a multidisciplinary, nuanced, and critical approach is deemed instrumental. It is concluded that only through dialogues between past, existing, and future governance templates can new underpinnings emerge for the conservation of nature and the environment in Europe and thus bring about more balanced relations with more-than-humans.

In the year 2022, Spain declared the Mar Menor—the largest saltwater lagoon in Europe—a legal entity. This was the first time that such rights were granted by any Member State of the EU; rights of nature (RoN) still remain a conceptual novelty. This chapter attempts to provide an approach to RoN in the existing human rights law relevant to the EU. In doing so, it can rely on a steadily growing number of national legal acts providing for RoN but also on international developments. In a first step (A.), it will be shown that human rights and RoN are by no means in opposition but complement each other to create comprehensive protection of human as well as nonhuman entities. Secondly (B.), it will be examined how European law opens up to nonhuman demands in substantive (B.I.) and procedural (B.II.) terms. In particular, the brief conclusion at the end of the chapter includes desirable next steps for strengthening RoN in Europe.

There is now a large body of scholarly literature on the legal and governance arrangements for the Whanganui River in Aotearoa New Zealand, given the rights of a legal person under Te Awa Tupua (Whanganui River Claims Settlement) Act 2017. Most of this literature focuses on the innovation of legal personhood and rights of nature rather than situating the Act in its local context or examining its implementation in practice. This article analyzes two cases of implementation – Te Pūwaha (the revitalisation of the Port of Whanganui); and Te Kōpuka nā Te Awa Tupua, the collaborative group charged with developing a strategy for the river. We shift attention away from legal personality to three other elements: The centrality of Māori kawa (value-based, Indigenous law); the establishment of a comprehensive set of new institutions and practices; and the devolution of authority to hapū (subtribes) and communities. These elements represent a paradigm shift towards a relational and reciprocal form of governance. While Te Awa Tupua Act does have some alignment with rights of nature, it should primarily be understood as recognising Indigenous rights and the authority of Indigenous law.

Ecological restoration has emerged as one of the leading paradigms in the context of environmental governance during the past decades. With the release of a Proposal for an EU restoration law in 2022, the European Commission underlined the pioneering role of the European Union in this regard. In this chapter, we analyse the precise alignment between ecological restoration and a rights-based approach to nature protection. Using the recently proposed EU restoration law as a benchmark, this chapter finds that a rights-based approach to ecological restoration might engender some additional complexities yet ultimately presents itself as a logical lever for more comprehensive restoration efforts on the European continent.

This chapter develops a historical-economic perspective on implementing Rights of Nature (RoN) in Europe by looking at crucial (legal) developments that accompanied industrialisation. The argument makes use of Polanyi’s “double movement” analysis, exploring the creation of free markets of labour (human) and land (nature) in the context of their societal legal responses. This chapter contends that counter-movements against liberal legislation have not created similar protective mechanisms for nature as they have for humans. The recognition of nature in the legal system is, therefore, argued to be an important element in countering the effects of the economic drive associated with the commodification and destruction of nature. The second section of the chapter explores the importance of RoN in fundamentally readjusting society’s relationship with nature. By introducing the idea of “living law” (Ehrlich), it emphasises that such change must emerge from within society and that the real potential of RoN challenges the legal authority of the state in relation to its positioning towards nature. This argument is supported by the case of the Hambacher Forest in Germany, which helps to illustrate how Kersten’s notion of a constitutional ecological revolution could be initiated. The primary aim of the chapter is to show that RoN have the potential to bring about a fundamental reorientation of European society towards nature. Whether this potential is realised, however, depends on how thoroughly and well RoN are implemented.

In the last fifty years, environmental laws have failed to reduce pollution and deterioration of the ecosystems on which humans depend. One of the fundamental reasons why environmental law is not effective in protecting Nature is the fact that the occidental model that dominates the planet has never replaced the idea of unlimited exploitation of the planet promoted by an anthropocentric paradigm. We need to shift to an eco-centric paradigm based on the belonging and interaction of human beings with Nature, which recognises the value and Rights of Nature. We present the first legal recognition of the Rights of Nature in Europe: the Mar Menor coastal lagoon and its basin, an ecosystem with legal personhood and rights, recognised by Spanish Parliament in September 2022. The Mar Menor gained its legal status through a legislative process initiated by citizens.

This chapter focuses on psychological aspects of Rights of Nature. By comparing the idea of Rights of Nature with a model, created by Per Espen Stoknes, on how to overcome psychological barriers to environmental/climate action, the conclusion is that the Rights of Nature discourse seems to be useful in overcoming these barriers to action. The chapter also presents ecopsychology, the study of psychological processes that tie us to the world or separate us from it, and suggests that ecopsychology deepens our understanding of the Rights of Nature by (1) an integrated theory of psyche, nature, and society; (2) an understanding of the interconnection between psychological/existential, ecological, and social crises; (3) an understanding of modern civilisation as a traumatised culture that uses consumerism as a temporary and dysfunctional strategy; (4) practices that let the interconnectedness between humans and the rest of nature become an embodied, lived reality; and (5) the synergetic effects of letting different movements come together. The chapter also notes that Rights of Nature have an important implication for ecopsychology by offering a language of rights that can open new possibilities for making ecopsychological perspectives more relevant on a societal level.

Animals are not voiceless. In fact, many animals are known to have sophisticated communication systems which can be considered a language. Animals communicate among themselves and with other species and make group decisions. This chapter explores how nature rights may be inclusive of diverse animal languages and invite new, more respectful multi-being relations. Acknowledging that animals speak gives rise to practical implications in terms of how to understand the intricacy of their inner lives, respect their agency, and discern their wishes. Deep listening, animal-language learning, and community-specific observational practices offer pathways to be inclusive of animal views and voices within decision-making structures. Initiatives in Europe can, and already are, engaging with wild animals as beings capable of mutually-shaping nature rights frameworks.

In diverse places across the planet, laws are emerging to change the legal status of more-than-human Nature from objects to subjects with rights. This chapter engages with the conceptual roots of legal subjectivity, in order to reveal the obstacles facing more-than-humans in employing legal statuses designed to solidify the exploitative relations of some humans towards more-than-human Nature. The chapter addresses how a logic and politics of human exceptionalism operates concurrently to exclude other lifeforms from the legal realm, as can be seen in the construction of Nature as object or resource, and to legitimise applications of extractivism towards Nature. Thereafter, the chapter questions whether the recognition of legal subjectivity for more-than-human Nature can be a means to resist extractivist politics, by considering experiences in Bolivia and Ecuador before turning to examine initiatives for the rights of Nature to be recognised in EU law. Ultimately, this chapter hopes to shine a light on the ongoing struggles for more-than-human subjectivities to access meaningful participation, not given realities, in the legal sphere.

In this chapter, which takes the form of an interview between an Indigenous person belonging to the Kichwa People of Sarayaku in the Ecuadorian Amazon and an activist anthropologist, the authors engage in dialogue and reflection on how the rights of Nature can be interculturally translated to Europe. Their interview encompasses various discussions that traverse between the Amazon and Europe, drawing on lessons learned from the process in Ecuador and addressing the current situation. Throughout, they emphasise the importance of foregrounding the beings of the Kawsak Sacha [Living Forest] while building bridges with the European context. They explore potential initiatives for translation and even establish a connection with the Sami People. They affirm that this translation is a vital component of decolonial law, as it paves the way for the emergence of a decolonial comparative law that also integrates specific elements from European contexts. To successfully bring this understanding to Europe, we must weave rights of Nature together in a “well-braided braid of knowledge”, ensuring a south-north dialogue understanding its epistemic enunciation. This requires fostering a meaningful intercultural dialogue and understanding between the Global South and the Global North, acknowledging the epistemic contributions of both perspectives.