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.

Granting Legal Personhood to Nature in the European Union: Contemplating a Legal (R)evolution to Avoid an Ecological Collapse? (Part 1)

2018 ◽  
Vol 15 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 309-332 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hendrik Schoukens
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Environmental Governance ◽  
Case Law ◽  
Habitats Directive ◽  
The European Union ◽  
The Road ◽  
Legal Personhood ◽  
National Courts ◽  
Rights Of Nature ◽  
On The Road

Over the past decade, the debate on Rights of Nature as a promising novel discourse within the ever-changing context of environmental governance has gained considerable traction. An increasing number of countries, amongst whom New Zealand and Ecuador, has moved to explicitly grant legal personhood to nature, with some national courts following suit. Underlying this trend is the need to correct the prevailing instrumentalist approach to nature, which sees nature merely as an object. For now, the idea of giving certain procedural and substantive rights to nature has passed relatively unnoticed in the European Union (eu), which prides itself over its set of progressive environmental directives and regulations. This paper, which is published in two parts, posits that a rights-based approach to nature might be relevant for the eu as well, seeing that anthropocentric frames are still permeating many of the eu’s environmental strategies. Having conducted an in-depth case-law analysis of a string of relevant decisions of the Court of Justice of the eu as regards the procedural and substantive underpinnings of Rights of Nature, it is argued that some of the most well-known eu environmental directives, such as the Habitats Directive and the Water Framework Directive, can effectively be used as a catalyst on a path towards a more ecocentric approach to eu environmental governance. That said, the lack of standing for nature in its own right before eu courts, which is at the forefront of the first part of this article, remains one of the most prominent legal obstacles on the road towards a more rights-based approach to nature conservation. In the remainder of this article, it is argued that introducing a rights-based approach through the adoption of a new directive might sound appealing yet would ultimately be unable to comprehensively implement the rationale underpinning Rights of Nature. Seeing that a reform of the eu Treaties in light of a more rights-based approach towards nature appears unlikely for now, the first, concrete manifestations of nature’s rights in the eu will probably be seen at Member States’ level.

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.

Loneliness through the lens of Black feminist love-politics: pedagogical practices amid pandemic online learning

2022 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mike Rifino ◽  
Kushya Sugarman
Keyword(s):  
College Students ◽  
Online Learning ◽  
Black Feminist Thought ◽  
Pedagogical Practices ◽  
Black Feminist ◽  
Teaching Experiences ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Virtual Classes ◽  
Feminist Perspectives ◽  
Literature Base

Purpose Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, including contact restrictions and the switch to virtual classes, loneliness has become a pressing concern for college students and their learning. This study aims to interrogate current discussions about college student loneliness through the lens of Black feminist love-politics to reimagine online pedagogical practices. Design/methodology/approach Using a broad literature base and anecdotes from personal teaching experiences, the authors contend that Black Feminist perspectives on love, care and solidarity can illuminate the sociopolitical dimensions of loneliness in pedagogically productive ways. Findings The authors explore various pedagogical practices that are inspired by Black feminist approaches that aim to promote solidarity, love and care in either virtual or in-person classrooms. These pedagogical suggestions result from the authors’ teaching experiences amid online learning and current literature in education. Practical implications The authors seek to support educators’ understanding of the most pervasive yet misunderstood emotional experiences of student learning amid the COVID-19 pandemic. This paper explores strategies for addressing feelings of loneliness within online learning-related contexts in higher education. This discussion will be particularly relevant for educators and students from historically marginalized populations. Originality/value This work focuses on the plight of community college students, a demographic that has not garnered enough attention in the educational research concerning this pandemic. In addition, this paper offers an account of loneliness that aligns with the political and ideological crisis of today and places it in conversation with Black feminist thought.

scholarly journals Seeing environmental injustices: the mechanics, devices and assumptions of environmental sustainability indices and indicators

2021 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Marina Requena-i-Mora ◽  
Dan Brockington
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Sustainability ◽  
Environmental Governance ◽  
Three Dimensions ◽  
Environmental Performance Index ◽  
Production And Consumption ◽  
Global North ◽  
Distributional Conflicts ◽  
Nature And Society ◽  
Shed Light ◽  
Sustainability Indices

At the heart of any colonization project, and therefore any move to de-colonize, are ways of seeing nature and society, that then allow particular ways of governing each. This is plainly visible in a number of tools that exist to measure progress towards (or regress from) environmental sustainability. The tools use indices and indicators constructed mostly by environmental scientists and ecologists. As such, they are not neutral scientific instruments: they reflect the worldviews of their creators. These worldviews depend on three dimensions: the values they prioritize, the explanatory theories they use and the futures they envision. Through these means different tools produce conflicting notions of the sustainability of our economies and societies. In this article, we shed light onto the theoretical and epistemological assumptions that lie behind key international sustainability indices and indicators: the Environmental Performance Index,Domestic Material Consumption, Material Intensity, the Material Footprint, the Carbon Footprint, the Ecological Footprint and CO2 emissions (territorial). The variables included in these indices, the way they are measured, aggregated and weighted all imply a particular way of understanding the relationships between economy, society and environment. This divergence is most clearly visible in the fact that some indices are negatively correlated with each other. Where one index might plot growing environmental sustainability, another shows its decline. Our results highlight that those devices and the theories informing them are particularly interesting for way how colonialism is materialized. Some of these measurements hide the material roots of prosperity and the ecological (and economic) distributional conflicts exported to the poorer countries by the global North, and others show how its production and consumption levels are reliant upon a socio-ecological 'subsidy' imposed on Southern countries. These subsidies represent injustices that present a primafacie case for decolonizing indices and indicators of environmental governance.

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.

scholarly journals One Izidora and two Rosas: notes for a perspective on a space protagonized by Black women

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-27
Author(s):  
Natália Alves da Silva
Keyword(s):  
Black Women ◽  
Conceptual Framework ◽  
Production Of Space ◽  
Black Feminist ◽  
Race And Class ◽  
The North ◽  
Leading Role ◽  
Feminist Perspectives ◽  
State Capital ◽  
Belo Horizonte

The aim of this article is to discuss the leading role played by Black women in disputes over place, which have occurred at three different historical moments, in the region of Izidora, where the Vitória, Esperança and Rosa Leão occupations are currently located, in the north zone of Belo Horizonte, state capital of Minas Gerais. The article seeks to demonstrate a convergence between the struggles of the communities to remain in the physical-territorial dimension and their struggles to name it. Black feminist perspectives are taken as epistemology, in order to build a conceptual framework that, by problematizing unidimensional analyzes of the production of space, provides visibility to the multiple dynamics that intersect in space and time, informed by gender, race and class.

Between Pachamama and Mother Earth: Gender, Political Ontology and the Rights of Nature in Contemporary Bolivia

2018 ◽  
Vol 118 (1) ◽  
pp. 25-40 ◽  
Author(s):  
Miriam Tola
Keyword(s):  
Human Subjects ◽  
Political Ontology ◽  
Legal Documents ◽  
Gender Binary ◽  
Paradoxical Effects ◽  
Rights Of Nature ◽  
Feminist Perspectives ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Political Speeches ◽  
Mother Earth

Focusing on contemporary Bolivia, this article examines promises and pitfalls of political and legal initiatives that have turned Pachamama into a subject of rights. The conferral of rights on the indigenous earth being had the potential to unsettle the Western ontological distinction between active human subjects who engage in politics and passive natural resources. This essay, however, highlights some paradoxical effects of the rights of nature in Bolivia, where Evo Morales’ model of development relies on the intensification of the export-oriented extractive economy. Through the analysis of a range of texts, including paintings, legal documents, political speeches and activist interventions, I consider the equivocation between the normatively gendered Mother Earth that the state recognises as the subject of rights, and the figure of Pachamama evoked by feminist and indigenous activists. Pachamama, I suggest, has been incorporated into the Bolivian state as a being whose generative capacities have been translated into a rigid gender binary. As a gendered subject of rights, Pachamama/Mother Earth is exposed to governmental strategies that ultimately increase its subordination to state power. The concluding remarks foreground the import of feminist perspectives in yielding insights concerning political ontological conflicts.

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