Earth Law

ARTICLE

Earth Law

Despite the passage of thousands of environmental laws in recent decades, Nature’s health continues to decline due to biodiversity loss, deforestation, the destruction of rivers and watersheds, climate change impacts, and other harms. This impacts humans, of course, because we are part of Nature. The primary cause of these crises is the legal system’s treatment of Nature as mere human property, with only humans and human-made entities possessing even the most basic rights. In turn, our economic system treats Nature as a commodity, encouraging its exploitation to the maximum possible extent for short-term profits. This fundamentally flawed model has led to the inevitable result of the global degradation of Nature.

Imagine instead a future in which rivers have a right to flow and forests have a right to thrive. This now exists in four countries nationally and almost 30 countries sub-nationally, and Earth lawyers are working to enforce these new rights and training legal guardians to serve as the voice of the voiceless and defend the rights of nature and future generations.

The Earth Law Center (ELC) works to pass and implement a new generation of laws that restore Nature to health. We call this field “Earth law,” like human rights law but for the planet. ELC's mission is to advance Earth-centered laws and movements for all life on the planet. We have been leaders in this field for almost 15 years with dozens of legal victories, including helping Panama write a national law on the Rights of Nature that passed in 2022. Last year, ELC published the first law school textbook and guide for Earth law practitioners. Since then, we’ve trained thousands of law students on how legal innovation can help save the planet. Our team has almost 20 leading experts based throughout the world.

The Rights of Nature recognizes that all entities possess inherent rights. This represents an evolution in our anthropocentric legal system, which gives rights to humans as other entities (such as corporations) but not to nature, upon which all life depends. This idea stems from a basic flow of logic set forth by historian and philosopher Thomas Berry: “Rights originate where existence originates. That which determines existence determines rights.” In particular, there are at least three rights for every member of the Earth community: the right to be, the right to habitat and the right to fulfill its role in the everrenewing processes of the Earth community.

When the United Nations created the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the drafting committee observed that “the supreme value of the human person...did not originate in the decision of worldly power, but rather in the fact of existing.” Similarly, just as humans have rights due to existing, Nature has rights because it exists.

The Rights of Nature is a legal interpretation of a worldview held by many Indigenous nations for millennia. Many indigenous traditions teach that humans and animals are equals in the Earth community. The traditions emphasize that all community members depend on the health and wellbeing of the planet. Rooted in deep indigenous knowledge is a deep respect and understanding that nature and humans are intimately connected and that to “love Nature is to love one’s self.”

A rights of nature legal system is Earth-centered, not humancentered. Instead of focusing exclusively on relationships between humans, rights of nature law regulates relations between all members of the Earth community. This is in stark contrast to legal systems around the world, where nature is treated as mere “property.”

Below are two examples of recent noteworthy work done by the Earth Law Center:

National Rights of Nature Law in Panama

ELC worked with the government of Panama and local partners, particularly The Leatherback Project, to help Panama write a national law recognizing the Rights of Nature, including rights to exist, persist, and regenerate its life cycles. The law also codifies various ecocentric law principles, such as “when in doubt, protect Nature.” ELC helped with legal drafting and analysis based on Panama’s goals of protecting its immense biodiversity and safeguarding the country from climate change. ELC also participated in government hearings. This landmark win resulted in hundreds of media mentions and is inspiring many other governments to follow suit.

Nature on the Board

On September 21, 2022, ELC helped create the first-ever Board seat for Nature for a London based natural products company Faith in Nature. ELC partnered with UK nonprofit ‘Lawyers for Nature’ and the pro bono legal team at Shearman & Sterling. This project required a deep dive into UK law, including how Nature could feasibly speak for itself without violating legal duties to the company. Now, ELC and Lawyers for Nature are serving as the guardians of Nature on the Board, attending monthly Board meetings and giving a voice to the natural world. Over 50 media outlets wrote about this case study in 2022.

Please join the Earth Law Center in our mission to bring Nature’s voice to bear on all decision making. 

Kevin Schneider

Kevin Schneider

Counsel, Earth Law Center