Rights of Nature

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Craig M. Kauffman
Keyword(s):  
Indigenous Rights ◽  
Ecological Sustainability ◽  
International Policy ◽  
Global Networks ◽  
Economic Rights ◽  
Legal Personhood ◽  
Legal Provisions ◽  
Governance Systems ◽  
Rights Of Nature ◽  
Policy Arenas

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.

scholarly journals TRAJECTORIES OF TRANSNATIONAL MOBILIZATION FOR INDIGENOUS RIGHTS IN BRAZIL

2016 ◽  
Vol 56 (4) ◽  
pp. 380-394 ◽  
Author(s):  
ANA CAROLINA ALFINITO VIEIRA ◽  
SIGRID QUACK
Keyword(s):  
Institutional Change ◽  
Social Movement ◽  
Indigenous Rights ◽  
Institution Building ◽  
Transnational Activism ◽  
Economic Rights ◽  
Indigenous Groups ◽  
Transnational Mobilization ◽  
1960S And 1970S

ABSTRACT While research on episodes of transnational activism has advanced substantially in recent years, our knowledge about how long-term trajectories of cross-border activism affect the formation of national social movements and their capacity to influence domestic institutional change is still limited. This paper addresses this gap by analyzing transnational mobilization around the political and economic rights of indigenous groups in Brazil. We show that early pathways of transnational mobilization generated a set of ideational, organizational and institutional outcomes that enabled previously marginalized actors to shape the directions of institutional change within the country at the time of the Brazilian democratic transition. We identify three initially uncoordinated trajectories of transnational mobilization taking place in the late 1960s and 1970s and show how they converged over time through two social mechanisms - institutional cross-referencing and social networking - to form an increasingly tightly knit inter-sectoral social movement that was capable of influencing institution-building during the period of the National Constitutional Assembly (1978-1988). We conclude with a discussion of the linkages between transnational activism and national social movement formation.

The Impact of the Ban on Seal Products on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples: A European Issue

2013 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 389-415 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dorothée Cambou
Keyword(s):  
Animal Welfare ◽  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
Indigenous Rights ◽  
Economic Rights ◽  
Legal Challenges ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Eu

Abstract A ban on seal product for animal welfare concerns had been adopted by the EU Parliament in 2009. This article examines whether the ban can be contested on the grounds of its effect on indigenous rights. It will first be determined whether the directive encroaches on the rights of indigenous peoples, as proclaimed by the UN Declaration. Despite the clause that exempts the purchasing of seal products, of which the Inuit are benefactors of; it is still believed that the Declaration has been breached, and thus constitutes a violation of their cultural and economic rights. The second section examines how the Inuit have challenged the Directive Regulation on Seal product. Overall, through the examination of this case, the goal of this article is to highlight the legal challenges facing Europe vis-à-vis the development of indigenous peoples’ rights.

scholarly journals Exploring the Human Rights Implications of Microfinance Initiatives

2008 ◽  
Vol 36 (3) ◽  
pp. 447-489 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rebecca Farrer
Keyword(s):  
Developing Countries ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Property Rights ◽  
Organizational Behavior ◽  
Social Enterprise ◽  
Indigenous Rights ◽  
Grameen Bank ◽  
Economic Rights ◽  
Behavior Theory ◽  
Rights Issues

This Article explores Microfinance and microcredit (“MFI”) programs from several perspectives, with particular emphasis on human rights issues. These programs involve making small loans to people who would otherwise be unable to borrow money to facilitate them starting their own businesses: frequently, the programs focus on women borrowers in developing countries. The emphasis of MFI programs on women in developing countries makes it important to consider these programs in terms of both women's and indigenous rights, while MFI as an approach to poverty merits a discussion of economic rights. Part I of the article will explore the concept and scope of current MFI programs, describing key components of these programs and assessing comments from both fans and critics. The Grameen Bank, which has been studied extensively and has acted as a model for several other programs, will be examined in detail. Part II of this Article considers MFI in the context of human rights considerations, including economic, indigenous, and women's rights. One particular aspect of Grameen's program, namely the use of Sixteen Decisions, is also critiqued, applying organizational behavior theory. Part III will compare MFI with other approaches to poverty, inclu property rights initiatives, women's cooperatives and social enterprise approaches.

Producing juridical knowledge: “Rights of Nature” or the naturalization of rights?

2018 ◽  
Vol 1 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 99-119 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ariel Rawson ◽  
Becky Mansfield
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Governance ◽  
Policy Network ◽  
Black Feminist ◽  
Global Consensus ◽  
Legal Personhood ◽  
Western Development ◽  
Rights Of Nature ◽  
Feminist Perspectives ◽  
Global North ◽  
Modes Of Existence

Rights of Nature, the idea of extending legal personhood to nature, is today’s most prominent alternative to mainstream environmental governance. Proponents describe Rights of Nature as a grassroots movement of diverse actors opposing commodification of life and anthropocentric dualism of western thought. In Rights of Nature, indigenous cosmologies validate holistic models of life to overcome dualities of nature and humans. We argue this move enacts a paradoxical dichotomy between the West and the rest and, in so doing, treats rights as existing outside western history. In this article, we push against the image of Rights of Nature as a global consensus converging on the inevitability of rights. Applying decolonial, black feminist perspectives on historical mobilizations of rights, we ask how rights for nature becomes rights as natural. We trace individuals, institutions, and ideas associated with Rights of Nature, conceptualized as a Transnational Policy Network. We find tight linkages among a small number of actors, mostly from the global North, who draw on western holism and jurisprudence to present nature’s rights as an indigenous and natural alternative to western development. Rights of Nature is not just connected to the same ideas of nature and law it rejects, but through these connections Rights of Nature universalizes colonial modes of existence as natural.

Rights of Nature: Why it Might Not Save the Entire World

2019 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 35-64 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julien Bétaille
Keyword(s):  
Paradigm Shift ◽  
Environmental Law ◽  
Intrinsic Value ◽  
New Paradigm ◽  
Philosophical Approach ◽  
Legal Personhood ◽  
Rights Of Nature ◽  
Value Of Nature ◽  
Entire World ◽  
Wide Access

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 problems Rights of Nature tries to cure – such as a lack of enforcement – will simply re-emerge if not adequately assessed within this novel paradigm.

The Rights of Nature, the Rights of Fiction: Mario Vargas Llosa and the Amazon

2021 ◽  
Vol 54 (1) ◽  
pp. 19-42
Author(s):  
Victoria Saramago
Keyword(s):  
Natural Resources ◽  
Indigenous Rights ◽  
Mario Vargas Llosa ◽  
Environmental Conservation ◽  
Indigenous Populations ◽  
Peruvian Amazon ◽  
Political Activities ◽  
Rights Of Nature ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Amazonian Region

Abstract The Amazonian region occupies a singular place in the fiction and nonfiction of the Peruvian writer Mario Vargas Llosa. Author of paradigmatic novels on the Peruvian Amazon, Vargas Llosa nevertheless has repeatedly defended extensive exploitation of Amazonian natural resources—at the expense of Indigenous rights and environmental conservation—in his essays and political activities. This article discusses this conflict between Vargas Llosa's fictional and nonfictional work on the Amazon through the lens of a theory of fiction that emerges from his essays across decades and that suggests that the fictional text is independent from the referential reality it represents. By revisiting his novels and writings about fiction, this article argues that Vargas Llosa's belief in the autonomy of fiction from its referential reality explains, to a certain extent, how the fascination with the Amazon present in the author's novels coexists with his defense of drastic changes in the region through environmental exploitation and the acculturation of Indigenous populations. While Vargas Llosa's work enjoyed a positive reception in the 1960s, the nontransitive notion of mimesis he proposed has gradually taken on reactionary undertones in the context of changing expectations since the 1980s and 1990s.

Part V Economic and Social Rights, Ch.17 Indigenous Rights to Development, Socio-Economic Rights, and Rights for Groups with Vulnerabilities: Articles 20–22, 24, and 44

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pérez-Bustillo Camilo ◽  
Hohmann Jessie
Keyword(s):  
Indigenous Rights ◽  
Social Rights ◽  
Economic Rights ◽  
Cultural Rights ◽  
Indigenous Worldviews ◽  
Right To Development ◽  
History Of ◽  
Women And Children ◽  
The Right ◽  
Core Issues

This chapter looks at Articles 20, 21, 22, 21, and 44, considering rights to development, socio-economic rights, and rights for groups with particular vulnerabilities. These provisions are centred on: the economic, social, and cultural rights of indigenous peoples, with a particular focus on the right to health; their right to development; and the rights of those indigenous individuals and groups who are particularly vulnerable, including women and children, and again with a particular focus on women's rights to be free from violence. The provisions highlight the evolving place of indigenous rights within the overall framework of international law and international human rights. However, the negotiating history of the provisions demonstrates that some of the core issues addressed in these Articles remain contested. The right to development itself, let alone a vision of development in harmony with indigenous worldviews, remains controversial and resisted by states.

Seeing Double

2009 ◽  
Vol 61 (2) ◽  
pp. 360-401 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emilie M. Hafner-Burton ◽  
James Ron
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Political Leaders ◽  
International Policy ◽  
Multimethod Research ◽  
The Past ◽  
State Agents ◽  
Rights Discourse ◽  
Human Rights Discourse ◽  
Policy Arenas

Over the past two decades, human rights language has spread like wildfire across international policy arenas. The activists who sparked this fire are engaged in two different campaigns. The first is comparatively modest, involving the persuasion of tens of thousands of global elites such as journalists, UN officials, donors, and national political leaders. The second is broader and more complex: to have a real impact on the behavior of tens of millions of state agents worldwide. While most international relations scholars agree that the first campaign has made real gains, opinions are split on the success—past, present, and future—of the second. In part, these divisions fall along methodological lines. With some exceptions, qualitative scholars working in the empirical international relations tradition express more optimism than their quantitative counterparts, whose contributions to the subfield are relatively new. This article reviews several new books on human rights and shows how their insights engage with these ongoing methodological debates. The authors argue that both qualitative and quantitative approaches offer important strengths and that neither has a monopoly on truth. Still, the human rights discourse may be thriving, at least in part, for reasons unrelated to impact. The authors conclude with suggestions for a more systematic and multimethod research, along with a plea for scholarly attention to the potential downsides of international human rights promotion.

scholarly journals International Environmental Law’s Lack of Normative Ambition: an Opportunity for the Global Pact for the Environment?

2019 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 213-236 ◽  
Author(s):  
Louis J. Kotzé
Keyword(s):  
United Nations ◽  
Environmental Law ◽  
Ecological Crisis ◽  
Ecological Sustainability ◽  
Earth System ◽  
International Environmental Law ◽  
System Integrity ◽  
Radical Critique ◽  
Rights Of Nature

This paper argues that international environmental law (iel) is not sufficiently ambitious to confront the Anthropocene’s socio-ecological crisis. The critique specifically focuses on iel’s lack of ambitious and “unmentionable” ecological norms such as rights of nature, Earth system integrity, and ecological sustainability that are not yet considered to be part of the corpus of iel, but that arguably should be in light of the prevailing and ever-deepening socio-ecological crisis. Assuming that the recent Global Pact for the Environment initiative and its accompanying United Nations-mandated report that assesses possible gaps in iel are indicative of the type of reforms we might expect of iel now and in future, the paper determines if and the extent to which the Global Pact initiative embraces ambitious norms and addresses iel’s “unmentionable” normative gaps. A secondary, but related, objective of the paper is to briefly respond to the recent view that any radical critique of the Global Pact initiative is either unfounded, unwarranted or undesirable.

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