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The Rights of Nature: A Paradigm Shift for Environmental Protection
This revolutionary legal framework moves beyond traditional environmental laws and acknowledges that Nature itself has inherent rights, much like human beings and corporations.
Apr 21, 2025
For centuries, legal systems around the world have treated Nature as property—something to be owned, exploited, and managed for human benefit. This anthropocentric perspective has led to widespread environmental degradation, climate change, and biodiversity loss.
However, a revolutionary legal framework is emerging: the recognition of the Rights of Nature. This paradigm shift moves beyond traditional environmental laws and acknowledges that Nature itself has inherent rights, much like human beings and corporations.
The Rights of Nature concept is based on the idea that ecosystems and species are not mere objects but living entities with their own inherent rights to exist, thrive, and evolve. This legal framework challenges the prevailing notion that Nature is merely a resource for human use and instead recognizes its intrinsic value. By granting legal personhood to rivers, forests, and other natural entities, governments and courts can ensure that these ecosystems have standing in legal proceedings.
By shifting from an exploitative to a respectful relationship with the natural world, humanity can ensure a healthier planet for future generations.
The movement gained global attention when Ecuador became the first country to enshrine the Rights of Nature in its Constitution in 2008. The document states that Nature, or "Pachamama," has the right to exist and regenerate. Similarly, Bolivia passed the Law of Mother Earth in 2010, reinforcing Indigenous worldviews that see Nature as a living system with rights. Since then, countries such as New Zealand, Panama, India, and Colombia have also granted legal rights to specific ecosystems, setting legal precedents that continue to inspire the global community.
Why should we grant rights to Nature, you might ask? Traditional environmental laws often fail to prevent ecological destruction because they are based on regulation rather than protection. Corporations and governments can exploit loopholes, pay fines, or simply weigh the financial cost of pollution against profit margins. The Rights of Nature framework, however, fundamentally shifts the legal system from one of ownership to one of stewardship.
One of the most compelling cases for this approach is the Whanganui River in New Zealand. In 2017, the New Zealand government recognized the river as a legal entity, granting it the same rights and responsibilities as a person. This decision was made in collaboration with the Whanganui iwi, the Indigenous Māori people who have long regarded the river as an ancestor. Now, legal guardians, including representatives from both the government and the Māori community, speak on behalf of the river in legal matters. This recognition has already influenced policy decisions related to conservation and sustainable water management. Similarly, in 2017, the High Court of Uttarakhand in India granted legal rights to the Ganges and Yamuna rivers, acknowledging their sacred and ecological importance. Although this ruling faced legal challenges, it sparked important discussions about environmental governance and the need for stronger protections for vital ecosystems.
Despite these victories, the implementation of the Rights of Nature faces legal, political, and economic challenges. Many governments and corporations resist this shift, fearing restrictions on industrial activities. Additionally, enforcement mechanisms vary widely, and some legal rulings remain symbolic without proper institutional backing. However, the movement continues to gain momentum. Local communities, Indigenous groups, and environmental activists are advocating for the recognition of Nature's rights as a crucial tool for fighting climate change and biodiversity loss. In the United States, cities such as Pittsburgh and Toledo have passed local ordinances recognizing the rights of ecosystems, empowering communities to challenge environmental destruction more effectively.
Ecuador has witnessed several groundbreaking legal victories that affirm Nature's rights. Among these, the 2021 Constitutional Court ruling on Los Cedros Reserve was historic: The court halted mining exploration in this biodiversity hotspot, recognizing that the rights of the forest and its species, including endangered monkeys and orchids, outweighed extractive interests. Similarly, in Intag, a region long defended by local communities, legal actions based on behalf of endangered frogs and the Rights of Nature have helped suspend mining operations that threatened primary cloud forests and rivers vital to both people and ecosystems.
Another notable case is Estrellita, a woolly monkey rescued from illegal trafficking. When authorities attempted to relocate her to a zoo, a judge ruled in favor of her individual rights as part of Nature—marking the first time an animal in Ecuador was granted such recognition. These cases underscore the growing power of constitutional rights when applied to real-life conflicts between conservation and exploitation. They also reflect the tireless advocacy of Indigenous peoples, environmental defenders, and legal experts who are reshaping the legal landscape to center ecological integrity and the interconnectedness of all life.
The Rights of Nature framework is more than just a legal concept—it is a cultural and ethical transformation. By shifting from an exploitative to a respectful relationship with the natural world, humanity can ensure a healthier planet for future generations. As this movement grows, it is essential for policymakers, legal scholars, and citizens alike to support and advance this revolutionary approach to environmental protection.
The Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature (GARN) is a global network that has been at the forefront of the Earth Jurisprudence and Rights of Nature movement for the last 15 years, educating, upholding, and supporting its growth. With over 6,000 allies worldwide, GARN serves as a movement hub, connecting Indigenous leaders, civil society, lawyers, and advocates reshaping environmental governance.
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'Democracy Must Be Respected': Bolivian Leader Replaces Military Chiefs Over Coup Attempt
Leftists and political leaders around the world slammed the coup effort as Bolivia's trade union federation called for an emergency mass mobilization and a general strike.
Jun 26, 2024
This is a developing story… Please check back for possible updates...
Bolivian President Luis Arce replaced top military leaders on Wednesday in response to an attempted coup d'état in which troops took over Plaza Murillo in La Paz and rammed an armored vehicle into the doors of the presidential palace so soldiers could storm the building.
"We denounce irregular mobilizations of some units of the Bolivian army," Arce, a member of the Movement for Socialism (MAS) party,
said on social media. "Democracy must be respected."
As
The Associated Pressreported:
In a video of Arce surrounded by ministers in the palace, he said: "The country is facing an attempted coup d'état. Here we are, firm in Casa Grande, to confront any coup attempt. We need the Bolivian people to organize."
Arce confronted the general commander of the army—Juan José Zúñiga, who appeared to be leading the rebellion—in the palace hallway, as shown on video on Bolivian television. "I am your captain, and I order you to withdraw your soldiers, and I will not allow this insubordination," Arce said.
Zúñiga told local media that "the three chiefs of the armed forces have come to express our dismay. There will be a new Cabinet of ministers, surely things will change, but our country cannot continue like this any longer."
Sharing his demands, Zúñiga said, "Stop destroying, stop impoverishing our country, stop humiliating our army."
The general claimed that the air force, army, and navy were "mobilized" and "the police force is also with us."
Meanwhile, "Arce swore in three new leaders of the armed forces," according toBuenos Aires Herald managing editor Amy Booth. "At the ceremony, army Commander in Chief Wilson Sánchez ordered the forces back to their barracks and at the moment they seem to be listening."
Despite the rift between former Bolivian President Evo Morales, who remains head of MAS, and Arce, who was his finance minister, Bolivia's ex-leader also spoke out against the military action on Wednesday, declaring that "the coup d'état is brewing."
"At this time, personnel from the armed forces and tanks are deployed in Plaza Murillo," Morales said. "They called an emergency meeting at the army general staff in Miraflores at 3:00 pm in combat uniforms. Call on the social movements of the countryside and the city to defend democracy."
After the change in military leaders, Morales—who has denounced his own 2019 ouster as a coup—demanded that "a criminal process" targeting "Zúñiga and his accomplices" begin immediately.
Wednesday evening, Bolivia's attorney general ordered "all legal actions that correspond to the initiation of the criminal investigation against Gen. Juan José Zúñiga and all other participants in the events that occurred," according toKawsachun News.
The Bolivian Workers' Center (COB), the South American country's trade union federation, had "called for an emergency mass mobilization and a general strike in response to the ongoing coup attempt," Progressive International highlighted on social media.
Progressive International also urged "international attention to these grave violations of Bolivian democracy."
Condemnation of the coup attempt and expressions of solidarity with those opposing it were shared around the world.
"We condemn the attempted coup in Bolivia and send our solidarity to President Luis Arce and his democratically elected government," declared the Peace & Justice Project, founded by Jeremy Corbyn, a member of the U.K. Parliament who used to lead the Labour Party.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said that "I firmly condemn the attempts to overthrow the democratically elected government of Bolivia. The European Union stands by democracies. We express our strong support for the constitutional order and rule of law in Bolivia."
U.S. Congresswoman Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) emphasized that she is "standing in solidarity with the Bolivian people as they fight to preserve their democracy," and "the coup attempt must be unequivocally condemned."
The Democratic Socialists of America's International Committee wrote on social media that "we extend our solidarity to the Bolivian people during this imminent emergency."
Morales said later Wednesday that "we appreciate all the expressions of solidarity and support for Bolivian democracy expressed by presidents, political and social leaders of the world. We are convinced that democracy is the only way to resolve any difference and that institutions and the rule of law must be respected. We reiterate the call for all those involved in this riot to be arrested and tried."
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What Latin America Can Teach the U.S. About Democracy
They can see with fresh eyes the deeper democratic possibilities that many are seeking, an able government, a more responsive government.
Dec 07, 2023
When Americans think about Latin American politics the cliché images that may come to mind are of military coups, tanks rolling, and generals in sunglasses. If Americans hear news about current Latin American politics it usually will deal with democracies that have died or are under assault, as is the case in Venezuela, Nicaragua, and El Salvador. So informed, many Americans would find the idea that Latin America could teach the U.S. anything positive about democracy to be downright laughable.
But things have changed. Although there remain serious issues for Latin American democracies, it is nonetheless fair to say that most of Latin America is governed by emerging democracies these days.
Think of most democracies around the world as falling basically into one of two categories: old, tight, democracies and young, loose democracies.
Old democracies, especially like that in the United States, have institutions and rules that can make them hardy and more likely to endure, but this very resilience can function to make old democracies highly resistant to much-needed change.
Citizens of old democracies often confuse the elements of their own political system as the very essence and singular definition of democracy. In the U.S. that can mean concluding that a proper democracy must have a house and a senate, four-year presidential terms, a nine-member Supreme Court, along with all the other long-standing aspects of the American political system. To this view, any attempt to modify or update any of the time-honored institutions or customs would mean threating the very foundations of democracy itself.
The implication of this, however, is that old, tight democracies can become burdened with recalcitrant institutions and increasingly problematic political habits. Together these can render old, tight democracies incapable of reforming themselves, powerless to revitalize their democracy. Democracy can become buried under the rumble of centuries-old political deal-making, long-ago compromises of expediency that had only been intended to solve the impasses of those moments in time. In the U.S. this nearly always meant yielding to the demands of slave-holders, and after the Civil War, yielding to the demands of white southern racists seeking to keep Blacks disenfranchised, segregated, and threatened.
The resulting political system in old, tight democracies can become one that is permanently stuck, unable to carry out even the most basic political chores, such as passing a national budget. In this manner, old democracies can be slowly transformed into a democracy in name only, succeeding only in obstructing the democratic will of the majority of the electorate.
In the U.S. ossified institutions and practices–the electoral college; the filibuster rule in the senate; the allocation of senate seats favoring scant rural populations while grossly under-representing urban populations, especially people of color; the lifetime appointments to the Supreme Court without a mandatory retirement age–are not the very definition of democracy. Rather, they are the nation’s greatest hindrances to the realization of full democracy. Exasperated citizens look at this situation and may just opt out, the act of voting seen as at best, a waste of time, at worst, a tacit endorsement of a deeply dysfunctional and undemocratic political system.
But young loose democracies, like those found across Latin America, nearly all dating from the 1980s, are not so encumbered. No weight of long-established traditions stands in the way of change. Young, loose democracies are not nearly as hindered from making the changes that voters seek, steps to make their nation more democratic and governed more ably. These newer democracies are more fluid, the rules of governance more readily malleable. It is realistic in young, loose democracies to think of setting aside a constitution that is just not working and writing a new one, as happened in Ecuador in 2008 or in Bolivia in 2009. Significantly, the rules for approval of these new constitutions were established on the fly, just as they were in the case of the U.S. when it was once a young, loose democracy and was adopting its first and only constitution.
So it is today that these young democracies that can teach old democracies.
They can see with fresh eyes the deeper democratic possibilities that many are seeking, an able government, a more responsive government. What young, loose democracies can most remind us all is that democracy is perhaps our greatest human experiment, but one that must be continually recreated to reflect changing social realities, clearing away the wreckage from the past that can continually frustrate our current democratic aspirations.
Old tight democracies can come unglued in trying to meet the challenge of a novel and serious criminal challenge to the basic survival of democracy. Such a development seemed unthinkable in the U.S. until the coup attempt led by President Trump on January 6th after he lost the 2020 election. As he and others are now being called before the courts to face criminal trials for their actions, some supporters of the former president have seen these steps as illegitimate, the “weaponization of the criminal justice system,” the actions of a “banana republic.” This is a slur that most Latin Americans would have no trouble recognizing.
But Latin America’s democracies today actually provide examples of how to best meet the challenge of effectively holding former and current law-breaking leaders accountable. Former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro is now barred from running for office for seven years due to his gross misuse of his official powers, including, among many alleged crimes, fomenting insurrection.
Odebrecht, the giant multinational construction firm, in 2016 admitted in U.S. court to paying out millions in hefty bribes to lawmakers all over the Americas. Nearly all of the many current and former Latin American leaders who took Odebrecht bribes are now either in prison or will soon be. It is precisely because these young democracies are more flexible in their rules, less burdened by the weight of tradition in their democracies, that they able to handle with greater adaptability and success the political stress test that has come up all around the Americas, dealing with a law-breaking current or former leader.
In bringing criminal charges against law-breaking leaders, Latin America is at long last honoring the rule of law, the principle of equality before the courts without exception. Indeed, the presence of an ongoing criminal case of a current or recent political leader should not be seen as evidence of the undermining of democracy, but instead provides proof that a nation is taking necessary if difficult steps to help assure democracy.
In calling former president Trump to account the U.S. is becoming more like Latin America, moving into alignment with hopeful hemispheric political trends. This is a good thing. If the United States is no longer the best example of and inspiration for democracy in the hemisphere, it still could be. One important way to do this would be unafraid to bring an ex-leader to justice.
Latin American nations will think no worse of us for this. In fact, they are getting very good at doing this themselves. The U.S. should look to their example.
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