Environmental Rights from Human to Non-Human Rights

Today, most human rights can be used as environmental rights. However, these human rights do not seem sufficient to guarantee environmental protection. That’s why some legal systems have imagined some non-human rights or rights of Nature or natural elements to improve the legal protection of the environment.

The question of considering Nature as a person may seem far-fetched. The answer seems obvious: Nature is not a person. However, the concept of person is increasingly being extended to include Nature itself or certain elements of it. This extension is now being advocated by certain peoples who consider nature to be ‘Mother Earth’ and proclaim themselves her representatives. In 2008, for example, the Ecuadorian Constitution gave Nature, as Mother Earth, the status of a subject of law. It derives genuine subjective rights from this. Similarly, since 2009, the Bolivian Constitution has recognised the right to a healthy environment for ‘individuals and groups of present and future generations, as well as other living beings, so that they can develop normally’. In essence, it is about enabling Nature to take legal action to defend and restore its rights.

Similarly, the issue of the personification of animals is a recurring one. For example, a court in Argentina has recognised a female orangutan as a ‘non-human subject of law’, following New Zealand’s decision in 1999 to extend human status to great apes, as India has done for dolphins.

Questions are being asked about the usefulness of this recognition. Does this recognition of rights of Nature or animals contribute more to the defence of the environment than the possibility given to associations? What would be the added value, other than symbolic, of personifying Nature or animals?