Nature rights and legal personhood of ecosystems: new paradigm of environmental protection

A comparative approach

Authors

  • Ricardo Ignacio Bachmann Fuentes Universidad Pablo de Olavide
  • Valentín Navarro Caro Universidad Isabel I de Castilla https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2955-7174

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.46661/revintpensampolit.6336

Keywords:

Nature Rights, Legal Personhood, Legal Environmental Protection, Non-Anthropocentrism

Abstract

Currently, there is a global level of an interesting group of legal norms that recognize or grant to nature or a specific ecosystem, the status of Legal Personhood and whose purpose is environmental protection and conservation. In turn, this award or recognition has also been carried out through the judgements of the higher courts. The motivations may vary, depending on whether that ecosystem is conceived as a living being or as a protectable patrimony. In this article, cases of Latin America, North America, Oceania and Asia will be approached to finally provide some conclusions based on a comparative analysis regarding the main features and their possible effects.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

Author Biography

Valentín Navarro Caro, Universidad Isabel I de Castilla

Doctor en Derecho (Eccellente con Lode por unanimidad) con Mención Internacional por la Universidad de Bologna (Italia). Licenciado en Filosofía por la Universidad Pontificia de Salamanca y la Universidad de Sevilla. Graduado en Derecho por la Universidad de Sevilla (Premio Real Maestranza de Caballería al mejor expediente académico; Premio Ayuntamiento de Sevilla al mejor expediente de la Facultad de Derecho y Premio Extraordinario Fin de Estudios de la Universidad de Sevilla). Máster en Abogacía por la Universidad de Sevilla (Premio Extraordinario Fin de Estudios). Abogado y Profesor del área de Teoría y Filosofía del Derecho de la Universidad Isabel I de Castilla.

References

Alcivar Toala, M. (2018). Los derechos de la naturaleza: una legitimación de derechos a la Pacha Mama dentro del Estado". Revista San Gregorio, Nº 26 extra, pp. 30-37.

Alley, K. (2019). River Goddesses, Personhood and Rights of Nature: Implications for Spiritual Ecology. Religions, Vol. 10 (9), pp. 1-17. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel10090502

Attfield, R. (2016). Voz Biocentrism. The International Encyclopedia of Ethics, Disponible en: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/book/10.1002/9781444367072 [Consultado el 20 de octubre de 2021].

https://doi.org/10.1002/9781444367072.wbiee670.pub2

Bedón Garzón, R. (2016) Contenido y aplicación de los derechos de la naturaleza. Ius Humani, Revista de Derecho, Nº5, 2016, pp. 133-148. https://doi.org/10.31207/ih.v5i0.124

Boslaugh, S. E. (2016) Voz Anthropocentrism en Encyclopaedia Britannica. Disponible en: https://www.britannica.com/topic/anthropocentrism [Consultado: 10 de octubre de 2021].

Brennan A.; Yeuk-Sze, L. (2016) Voz Environmental Ethics en Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Disponible en: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ethics-environmental/ [Consultado: 1 de octubre de 2021)

Charpleix, L. (2018). The Whanganui River as Te Awa Tupua: Place-based law in a legally pluralistic society. The Geographical Journal, Nº 184, Issue 1, pp. 19-30. DOI:10.1111/geoj.12238

Deckha, M. (2020). Unsettling anthropocentric Legal Systems: Reconciliation, Indigenous Laws and Animal Personhood. Journal of Intercultural Studies, Vol. 41, Issue 1, pp. 77-97. https://doi.org/10.1080/07256868.2019.1704229

Erdós L. (2019) Green Heroes. From Buddha to Leonardo DiCaprio. Springer International Publishing, Suiza.

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-31806-2

Gobierno de Nueva Zelanda. Voz Te Ara en The Encyclopedia of New Zealand. Disponible en: https://teara.govt.nz/en/te-ao-marama-the-natural-world/page-5 [Consultado: 2 de octubre de 2021].

Gudynas, E. (2010). La senda biocéntrica: valores intrínsecos, derechos de la naturaleza y justicia ecológica. Tabula Rasa, Nº 13, pp. 45-72. https://doi.org/10.25058/20112742.404

Hasson de Oliveira, V. (2020) Direitos da Natureza no Brasil: o caso de Bonito- PE en LACERDA, L. (Coordinador) Direitos da Natureza, marcos para a construçao de uma teoria geral. Sao Leopoldo, Casa Leiria, pp. 131-146.

https://doi.org/10.29327/524851.1-10

Hogan, M. (2007) Standing for nonhuman animals: Developing a Guardianship Model from de dissents in Sierra Club. Vs. Morton. California Law Review, Vol. 95 (513), pp. 513-534. https://doi.org/10.2307/20439100

Horta, O. (2009) El cuestionamiento del antropocentrismo: distintos enfoques normativos. Revista de Bioética y Derecho, Nº 16, pp. 36-39.

Huanacuni, F. (2016) Los derechos de la Madre Tierra. Revista Jurídica Derecho, Vol. 3, Nº 4, pp. 157-169.

Iors, C. (2019) From Rights to Responsibilities using Legal Personhood and Guardianship for Rivers. En: MARTIN, B; TE AHO, L; M HUMPHRIES-KIL, M. (Editores). ResponsAbility: Law and Governance for Living Well with the Earth. Londres y Nueva York: Editorial Routledge, pp 216-239. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429467622-15

Islam, M; O'Donell, E. (2020) Legal rights for the Turag: rivers as living entities in Bangladesh. Asia Pacific Journal of Environmental Law, Vol.23 (2), pp. 160-177. https://doi.org/10.4337/apjel.2020.02.03

Kaufmann, C; Martin, P. (2018) Constructing Rights of Nature Norms in the US, Ecuador and New Zealand. Global Environmental Politics, Vol. 18 (4), pp. 43-62. https://doi.org/10.1162/glep_a_00481

McKeown, M. (2019) The trees are still standing: The backstory of Sierra Club. V. Morton. Journal of Supreme Court History, Vol. 44 (2), pp. 189-214. https://doi.org/10.1111/jsch.12210

Madjarian, G. (2009) El derecho del hombre a disponer del mundo. Gazeta de Antropología, Nº 25/2.

https://doi.org/10.30827/Digibug.6894

Mattar, S. (2012) "Yeats, Fairies and the New Animism". New Literary History, Vol. 43, Nº 1, pp. 137-157.

https://doi.org/10.1353/nlh.2012.0006

Megías Quirós, J.J. (2014). El dominio sobre la naturaleza: de la moderación escolástica al relativismo kantiano. Persona y Derecho, Nº 70, pp. 147-169. https://doi.org/10.15581/011.70.147-169

O'Bryan, K. (2019) The changing face of river management in Victoria: The Yarra River Protection (Wilip-gin birrarung murron) Act 2017 (Vic). Water International, Vol. 4 (6-7), pp. 769-785. https://doi.org/10.1080/02508060.2019.1616370

O'Donell, E; Talbot-Jones, J. (2018) Creating legal rights for rivers: lessons from Australia, New Zealand and India. Ecology and Society, Vol. 23 (1), Art. 7. https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-09854-230107

O'Donell, E. (2018) At the Intersection of the Sacred and the Legal: Rights for Nature in Uttarakhand, India. Journal of Environmental Law, Issue 30, pp. 135-144. https://doi.org/10.1093/jel/eqx026

Prada Cadavid, A. (2012) Antropocentrismo jurídico: Perspectivas desde la filosofía del derecho ambiental. Criterio Libre Jurídico, Vol. 9 (1), pp. 29-43.

Rodgers, C. (2017). A new approach to protecting ecosystems: The Te Awa Tupua (Whanganui River Claims Settlement) Act 2017. Environmental Law Review Vol. 19 (4), pp. 266-279. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461452917744909

Salazar Ortiz, V; Láriz Durón, J. (2017). Una crítica al antropocentrismo desde la ética ambiental. Euphyía, Vol. 11 (20), pp. 107-130. https://doi.org/10.33064/20euph1363

Strack, M. (2017). Land and rivers can own themselves. International Journal of Law in the Built Environment, Vol. 9 (1) pp. 4-17. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJLBE-10-2016-0016

Tanasescu, M. (2016) Environment, Political Representation and the Challenge of Rights. Palgrave MacMillan, London.

https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137538956

Tepper, E; Whitehead, C. (2018). Moon Inc.: The New Zealand model of granting legal personality to natural resources applied to space. New Space, 6 (4), pp. 288-298. https://doi.org/10.1089/space.2018.0025

https://doi.org/10.1089/space.2018.0025

The Cyrus R. Vance Center. (2020). Rights of Rivers. A global survey of the rapidly developing Rights of Nature jurisprudence pertaining to rivers. Oakland: The Cyrus R. Vance Center, Earth Law Center, International Rivers.

Viaene, L. (2021). Indigenous Water Ontologies, Hydro-Development and the Human/More Than Human Right to Water: A Call for Critical Engagement with Plurilegal Water Realities. Water, Vol. 13 (1660), pp. 1-22.

https://doi.org/10.3390/w13121660

Yu, M; Yi, L. (2009) Biocentric Ethical Theories. Teng y Ding (Editores) Environment and development, Vol. II. EOLSS, UNESCO, Oxford, Reino Unido.

Downloads

Published

2022-01-28

How to Cite

Bachmann Fuentes, R. I., & Navarro Caro, V. (2022). Nature rights and legal personhood of ecosystems: new paradigm of environmental protection: A comparative approach. International Journal of Political Thought, 16, 357–378. https://doi.org/10.46661/revintpensampolit.6336

Issue

Vol. 16 (2021): Volumen 16 (2021)

Section

Estudios Varios

License

Copyright (c) 2022 Ricardo Ignacio Bachmann Fuentes, Valentín Navarro Caro

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Licencia Creative Commons

Open access policy

Free and open access is allowed to any interested party to all the contents of the journal issues, free of charge, being able to print and transfer all the articles, with the only condition of specifying the source and authorship.

The journal: a) does not charge authorship costs for the processing of articles or for their submission, b) maintains copyright for authors without restrictions, c) facilitates authors to keep their publication rights without limitations.

The International Journal of Political Thought is an original work of the Laboratory of Political Ideas and Practices of the Pablo de Olavide University. All articles included in the Journal are original work of their respective authors. This Journal is freely offered to the scientific and academic community at no cost and releases the contents according to the license "Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 CC BY-NC-SA" of the Creative Commons project available in the following url: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/legalcode

If you wish to translate or compile any of the articles available here, please contact us at contacto

Most read articles by the same author(s)