Rights of Nature

- Wikipedia: 

Rights of nature or Earth rights is a legal and jurisprudential theory that describes inherent rights as associated with ecosystems and species, similar to the concept of fundamental human rights. The rights of nature concept challenges twentieth-century laws as generally grounded in a flawed frame of nature as "resource" to be owned, used, and degraded. Proponents argue that laws grounded in rights of nature direct humanity to act appropriately and in a way consistent with modern, system-based science, which demonstrates that humans and the natural world are fundamentally interconnected.

This school of thought is underpinned by two basic lines of reasoning. First, since the recognition of human rights is based in part on the philosophical belief that those rights emanate from humanity's own existence, logically, so too do inherent rights of the natural world arise from the natural world's own existence. A second and more pragmatic argument asserts that the survival of humans depends on healthy ecosystems, and so protection of nature's rights in turn, advances human rights and well-being.

From a rights of nature perspective, most environmental laws of the twentieth century are based on an outmoded framework that considers nature to be composed of separate and independent parts, rather than components of a larger whole. A more significant criticism is that those laws tend to be subordinate to economic interests, and aim at reacting to and just partially mitigating economics-driven degradation, rather than placing nature's right to thrive as the primary goal of those laws. This critique of existing environmental laws is an important component of tactics such as climate change litigation that seeks to force societal action to mitigate climate change.


- Rights of Nature Law: 

Rights of nature law is the codification and other implementations of the legal and jurisprudential theory of the rights of nature. This legal school of thought describes inherent rights as associated with ecosystems and species, similar to the concept of fundamental human rights.[1][2][3][4]

The early 2000s saw a significant expansion of rights of nature law, in the form of constitutional provisions, treaty agreements, national and subnational statutes, local laws, and court decisions.[5] As of 2022, nature's rights laws exist in 24 countries,[6] (up from 17 in 2021)[7][8][9] including in Canada,[10] at least seven Tribal Nations in the U.S. and Canada, and over 60 cities and counties throughout the United States.[6][11][12][13] The total number of countries with either existing or pending rights of nature legal provisions was 29 as of 2022.