Rights of nature is a theory that ecosystems, species, and natural processes have inherent rights and humans must take these rights into account. Currently, rights of nature laws take different forms over the many countries, states, and cities that have address the rights of nature through treaties, legislation, and judicial decisions. They are often a combination of Indigenous concepts of the natural world with a “rights” framework from the Western legal tradition.
Under rights of nature laws, rivers and other bodies of water have been granted legal personhood. The White Earth Nation of Ojibwe filed a lawsuit against Minnesota’s Department of Nature Resources over rights of wild rice, threatened by an oil pipeline. A court in Ecuador ruled that a mine violated a cloud forest’s rights. Salmon sued the city of Seattle over the construction of hydroelectric dams. Rights of nature theory has also informed several lawsuits where young people have filed lawsuits claiming damages from climate change.
These books discuss the legal framework for the rights of nature, policy development and strategies, and Indigenous and international perspectives of rights of nature. Click on the book covers for links to our catalog.
Northwestern Law Library Blog 