With the onset of climate change, the prospect of mass extinction, and the closing window of opportunity to take meaningful action, a growing number of activists, lawyers, scientists, 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 prioritize 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 considered 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 continents, and 50 more RoN laws were pending in a dozen other countries. RoN is also recognized in numerous international policy documents. After defining RoN, this chapter examines 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.
Active but not independent: the legal personhood of children
