Chloé Maurel

International governance in the “protection of living beings” is at the heart of discussions. In July 2021, the UN Secretary-General, Portuguese national António Guterres, expressed a strong position, considering it “highly desirable” to create the crime of “ecocide” by including it in the list of crimes tried by the International Criminal Court.

Some countries have already innovated by recognizing rights for nature, for example for rivers. This is the case in India and New Zealand, which, since 2017, have recognized legal personality for rivers such as the Ganges and Yamuna (India), and the Whanganui River (New Zealand), in order to guarantee their rights to be preserved in their integrity.

Should we continue in this direction by extending the concept to the various elements of nature: rivers, seas, forests, wetlands, arid zones, animals…? As in the recent film The Dog Trial, which humorously but ultimately seriously raises the possibility of considering animals as legal persons. Or should we instead focus on the rights of human beings, which are far from being guaranteed today throughout the world?

Let us examine some initiatives that seek to preserve living entities, their philosophical, legal and political foundations, before assessing the intimate links between human rights and the rights of nature.

Pioneering initiatives

It was first and foremost Indigenous peoples who considered nature as a person in its own right. Thus, since 1870 in New Zealand, the Iwi tribe had been fighting for this recognition concerning the Whanganui River. This river, nearly 300 kilometres long, was finally recognized in 2017 by the New Zealand Parliament as a living entity, with the status of “legal personality” throughout its entire length, including its tributaries and banks.

At the same time, in India, the two sacred rivers, the Ganges and the Yamuna, were elevated to the status of “living entities with the status of legal persons” by the High Court of the Himalayan state of Uttarakhand. This allows citizens to take legal action to protect these rivers and fight against their already dramatic industrial pollution.

The movement expanded in the following years: “From Ecuador to Uganda, from India to New Zealand, through constitutional, legislative or judicial means, rivers, mountains and forests are gradually being recognized as legal persons, when it is not nature as a whole — Pachamama (Mother Earth) — that is promoted as a subject of rights.”

For the first time in Europe, Spain, through its Senate, recognized in 2022 rights for the “Mar Menor”, a saltwater lagoon located on the Mediterranean coast near Murcia.

Philosophical, legal and political reflection

These movements, most often coming from groups of citizens highly aware of ecological issues, are based on philosophical, political and legal reflections.

These considerations originated in the 1970s, a period when ecological thought was expanding. In 1972, the American jurist Christopher Stone published a widely noted essay: “Should Trees Have Standing?”, defending the cause of the venerable and ancient giant sequoias of California. A conceptual change to be welcomed, according to jurist Marie Calmet, as a “democratic revolution”. She particularly applauds Ecuador’s decision “where citizens voted by referendum in favour of the rights of Pachamama (Mother Earth), within the framework of the Constitution adopted in 2008”.

However, at a time when human beings are suffering and dying in atrocious conditions, from migrant boats in the Mediterranean to war zones in Ukraine, Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Gaza, should the international community not instead focus its efforts on human beings? Would it not be better to prioritize human lives over the lives of trees and rivers?

Rights of Living Beings and Human Rights

In reality, these are two sides of the same coin. The recent “One Health” movement, which developed within national and international health institutions during the Covid-19 crisis (2019–2022), holds that health must be considered “at the interface between animals, humans and their environment, at the local, national and global levels.”

Faced with health and environmental crises, the goal is to “find solutions that address both health and environmental concerns”: indeed, 60% of human infectious diseases originate in animals, and pollution of a river or groundwater table affects the surrounding population.

The One Health concept thus “links human health to animal health, as well as to plant and environmental health. This holistic approach offers a comprehensive view for understanding and addressing the various issues at stake, all of which are interconnected: polluting human activities that contaminate the environment; deforestation that gives rise to new pathogens; animal diseases that strike livestock; and those same animal diseases that ultimately give rise to infectious diseases in humans (zoonoses).”

As Gilles Bœuf, a biologist and biodiversity specialist, points out, the goal for nature advocates is now for One Health to become “a political project,” “by setting up participatory mechanisms, for instance,” and it must be understood that asserting and protecting the rights of living beings serves the right cause “for the well-being of citizens.”

It is therefore essential to recognize that human health, animal health and plant health are interconnected, and that protecting nature (rivers, forests, mangroves, animals, and so on) serves the right cause in preserving our societies’ way of life.

This interconnection between the natural environment and the interests of human populations requires transcending state borders: the international community — namely the UN and its agencies (WHO, UNESCO, FAO, WMO, and others) — is particularly well placed to oversee the regulation of these interests through international conventions.

It could therefore take up these issues to establish international legislation to preserve living beings in all their forms, for the benefit of humanity as a whole.

First published: https://theconversation.com/