Science and the legal rights of nature
In: Science (Washington). American Association for the Advancement of Science: New York, N.Y. ISSN 0036-8075; e-ISSN 1095-9203, more
|  |
| Authors | | Top |
- Epstein, Y.
- Ellison, A.M.
- Echeverría, H.
- Abbott, J.K.
|
|
|
| Abstract |
Over the past 15 years, legal rights for nature have gone from a fanciful idea to legal fact in a growing number of countries. To date, these laws have had the greatest legal impact in the Global South, where Indigenous activism, political conflicts, and lack of effective environmental laws have provided opportunity and incentive for legal experimentation, but they have also been enacted at the local level in North America. In late 2022, Spain enacted the first rights-of-nature law in Europe, establishing the legal personhood of the Mar Menor lagoon.Rights-of-nature laws have reached a critical point at which they may either be normalized or marginalized. They have captured the public imagination, leading to growing advocacy for, and enactment of, these laws. Some of these laws have succeeded in protecting the environment, often with the aid of engagement from scientists who have helped to interpret and implement them. Others have failed, often not because of the concept that nature can have rights but due to lack of clarity—scientific or otherwise—about how the law should be applied. The engagement of scientists with these laws as they are enacted, implemented, and enforced has been a key factor in judges’ ability to apply them. |
|
