The Rights of Nature: The Fight for Legal Personhood

For centuries, we as humans have felt more than comfortable to help ourselves to the land and its resources. Over time, it has evolved to take on what can seem like a one-sided relationship; We take what we need and pay only a fraction of the price and attention back to the Earth. Traditionally, nature has been subject to a Western view of property-based ownership, meaning that the owner has the right to modify their natural features, or to destroy them at their discretion. Many indigenous communities recognize nature as a subject with personhood deserving of protection and respect, rather than looking at it as a merchandise or commodity over which are property rights should be exercised.

During my first year at the University of Waterloo, one of my courses spent time exploring instances of environmental protection, where nature was granted legal personhood status. The concept of environmental personhood was first highlighted in essays by University of Southern California law professor Christopher D. Stone, collected into a 1974 book titled Should Trees Have Standing? Toward Legal Rights for Natural Objects. Stone argued that if an environmental entity is given legal personhood it cannot be owned and has the right to appear in court.

In my class, the highlighted example was the story of the Whanganui River in Aotearoa (New Zealand) where in 2017 the government enacted legislation to recognize the River as an individual, indivisible entity, granting it legal rights and responsibilities, the same as you or I would have. The Māori people from there, the Whanganui Iwi, are deeply connected with the River though ancestral ties existed long before the colonization of Aotearoa. The decision was significant not only for granting legal rights to a natural entity, but it models a practice to evolve the common law to better respect and reflect Indigenous legal principles for environmental protection.

There are a multitude of examples where nature has been granted legal personhood from each flowing river in Bangladesh to Ecuador, embedding the legal rights of nature in its constitution. This example stuck with me, partially due to a strong desire to visit the country and all its beauty, but also because it filled me with the sense of hope that the fight for the environment can be won.