Rights of Nature

There is nothing exclusively human about suffering harm. Therefore, victim protection would not be rendered useless if it were applied to non-humans. In fact, it would be the missing piece of a puzzle that the EU has been putting together for over a decade. The environment and its (non-human) inhabitants are not specifically excluded from legal victimhood; they were just never considered.

However, extending victims’ rights to non-humans will require adequate assistance and representation of the victims. Deciding on this is crucial since the representation will not only act in the name of non-human victims, but it will also take fundamental decisions about nature’s interests.

By granting ecosystems and species legal rights to exist, thrive, and regenerate, RoN provides a legal instrument for environmental defence in court, not only for human benefit but also for nature's sake. This paradigm shift in philosophy and law recognises natural entities as rights-holders, akin to people and corporations.

The interplay between rights of nature and economic externalities calls for a reconceptualisation of how we value nature in the economic sphere, possibly leading to more sustainable practices and a legal framework that prioritises ecological health alongside economic interests. 

RoN has the potential to make the European Green Deal effective by transforming its indirect means into more direct action, where its governance is key to achieving a successful response to climate change by aligning governance structures with the core features of the climate change challenge, such as its long-term, dynamic, uncertain, complex and cross-sectoral nature. 

As RoN initiatives often align with environmental justice movements, which seek to address the disproportionate impacts of environmental degradation on marginalized communities, they can be a useful legal tool to validate these perspectives, ensuring that their relationships with the environment are respected and protected within legal and economic frameworks.

The ocean covers more than 70% of our planet, yet our laws still treat it as a resource rather than a living system. International and European legal frameworks were built on the idea that humanity stands above nature — that protection is justified only in terms of human benefit. 

Augustine Hacques and Henrieke Bünger’s research explores how the Rights of Nature movement — and the idea of ocean due diligence — could transform this paradigm. What if environmental protection no longer depended on human enjoyment, but on the ocean’s own right to thrive? What if corporations, states, and institutions were bound not just to prevent harm, but to ensure the well-being of the living systems they depend on?

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Emerging international rulings already hint at this shift: greenhouse gas emissions are now recognised as marine pollution, and ecocide is entering European law. Together, these steps point toward a new kind of legal imagination — one where the ocean is not governed for us, but with us. Recognising its rights is recognising our place within a shared, interdependent world.

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Ocean due diligence, grounded in these rights, becomes a form of planetary ethics — a way to hold power accountable to the living world itself. This shift asks us to reimagine the foundations of law: not as the rule of humans over nature, but as the rule of relationship within a living planet.

Without legal personality, nature cannot independently advocate for its interests, nor can it enter negotiations or agreements that could protect or benefit it. Instead, their value is often determined through economic or political compromises, which may not prioritise their ecological importance.

The Rights of Nature framework has the potential to improve environmental governance by fostering a more sustainable balance between economic activities and conservation. It can streamline resource management by lowering transaction costs and addressing long-term ecological risks. However, to fully harness these benefits, there are significant hurdles to overcome, such as navigating regulatory ambiguities and managing the economic impacts of transitioning to this new legal structure.

“The Rights of Nature,” write Jedida Mupako and Carolina Ramalho Santos, “seek to shift law from a human-centred worldview to one where rivers, forests, and ecosystems are recognised as living entities with their own rights.”

Their research explores how such recognition — already seen in Ecuador’s Vilcabamba River, New Zealand’s Whanganui, and India’s Ganges and Yamuna — could transform European law. While EU treaties protect the environment, they stop short of granting nature legal standing. To truly honour rivers as rights-holders, the authors argue, Europe must move beyond treating nature as property and instead see it as a participant in justice.

Granting rights to a river, they suggest, is more than a legal act: it is a cultural reawakening — “a remembrance that we, too, are tributaries of the same flow.”

Wildfires in Europe, once seasonal, now burn year-round — intensified by climate change and, increasingly, by human greed. Rethinking Fire in the EU argues that many fires are not natural disasters but deliberate acts of “arson-for-profit,” where land and insurance schemes exploit destruction for economic gain.

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The paper proposes merging climate adaptation with the Rights of Nature framework to counter this cycle. Early warning systems, responsible land use, and community stewardship can reduce fire risk, while granting ecosystems legal rights reframes fire not as a tool for profit, but as part of natural ecological renewal.

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Recognizing forests and landscapes as rights-bearing entities could shift Europe’s approach from suppression to respect — transforming law into a guardian of balance rather than an enforcer of ownership. “To protect nature,” the authors imply, “is to defend its right to burn, regenerate, and endure — free from human exploitation.”

In 2022, Spain made history: the Mar Menor — Europe’s largest saltwater lagoon — was granted legal personhood. Known as Law 19/2022, the Mar Menor Act marked the first time in Europe that a natural body was recognised as a subject of rights, with the legal power to exist, evolve, and be restored.

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Sky Ravenscroft’s paper examines whether this act is a pioneering step or a problematic precedent. Critics argue it is symbolic, legally vague, and constitutionally fragile — lacking the deep cultural or Indigenous grounding found in Latin American models. Supporters see it as the beginning of a uniquely European path: science-based, community-driven, and rooted in ecological reason rather than spiritual cosmology.

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Two years on, the lagoon’s health shows signs of recovery, and courts have begun to act in its name. Whatever its flaws, the Mar Menor Act opens a new chapter for European law — one where nature itself may finally speak in its own defence.

The existing structure of global trade, heavily influenced by the European Union, is fundamentally anthropocentric.  The current legal framework often treats vital ecosystems, like rivers and water bodies, merely as resources subordinate to economic growth and market liberalisation. Recognising the Rights of Nature (RoN) - as demonstrated by precedents granting legal personality to entities like the Mar Menor lagoon - provides a vital eco-centric shift that recognises the fundamental right of water bodies to exist and evolve naturally. 

Embedding RoN principles as binding obligations into international trade law is the crucial step required to address existing environmental policy failures and establish non-negotiable ecological thresholds that prioritise the intrinsic right of these entities to exist and evolve naturally above short-term commercial gains.