Rights of Nature
Luis Lloredo Alix
1. Theoretical background
In recent decades, we have witnessed the emergence of a new type of rights: the rights of nature. There are theoretical precedents from as early as the 20th century that advocated for this shift. Christopher Stone did so in a famous 1972 article entitled ‘Should Trees Have Standing? Toward Legal Rights to Natural Objects’ (Stone, 1972). In this essay, Stone argued for the possibility of granting legal standing and rights to natural entities such as rivers, oceans or forests. However, he did so from an approach that we might call non-subjectivist, because he considered that it was not necessary to subjectivize nature in order to carry out such an operation: rights, in his view, are an instrument that can be used to provide enhanced protection for certain assets that we deem worthy of protection, but that does not mean that the entity we endow with rights is necessarily a subject. For this reason, Stone spoke of granting rights to ‘natural objects’.
A few years later, in 1978, the Chilean jurist Godofredo Stutzin went a step further, arguing that nature should be viewed as a ‘real entity’ (Stutzin, 1984). In his view, this would lead to understanding the legal personification of nature as a substantive, rather than merely procedural, recognition. This was crucial because, “as long as it remains merely a good, nature will be subordinated to the utilitarian interests of humankind” (Stutzin, 1984, p. 102). According to Stutzin, this shift in focus should take us from environmental law to ecological law, in which the interests of nature would be safeguarded through a series of transformations that should extend to all branches of the legal system. Among other possible institutions of this new law, Stutzin proposed the principle of in dubio pro natura, the introduction of an ‘ombudsman’ for the rights of nature — a special institution authorised to enforce them — or the regulation of the ‘ecological function of property’, the aim of which would be to restrict ecologically harmful uses of private property.
2. Legal recognition
Beyond this theoretical background, the recognition of rights for natural entities is a phenomenon unique to the 21st century. The first significant legislative milestone came with the 2008 Ecuadorian Constitution, which enshrined the rights of nature in a specific chapter and identified, in particular, the rights to restoration, maintenance, full respect and the regeneration of its life cycles. In 2010, Law 071 of the Republic of Bolivia took implementation a step further by identifying the following rights: “to life”, “to the diversity of life”, “to water”, “to clean air”, “to balance”, “to restoration” and “to live free from pollution”. Moreover, this act introduced a list of duties incumbent upon the State and individuals to give effect to these rights, and established an “Ombudsman for Mother Earth” whose role would be to ensure compliance with all of the above.
Following these two milestones, there have been further recognitions of rights for natural entities around the world. Notable examples include the case of the Atrato River in Colombia, which was declared a rights-holder by the Colombian Constitutional Court in 2016; the case of the Whanganui River in New Zealand, which was recognized as a legal person in 2017 under a law passed by the New Zealand Parliament; and the case of the Mar Menor in Spain, which has been defined as an ecosystem with legal personality and rights under Law 19/2022, resulting from a popular legislative initiative. This is merely an illustrative list: according to the analysis by Putzer et al. (2025), there are more than four hundred recorded cases of rights being attributed to natural entities across the globe, whether of a constitutional, legal or regulatory nature, and at both national and municipal levels.
Beyond specific legal recognition, the enshrinement of rights for nature raises certain philosophical questions. It is impossible to outline a general theory of the rights of nature here, so I shall merely touch upon the issues of the grounding (§3), the rights-holder (§4), the concept (§5) and the forms of representation (§6). I shall conclude with a brief consideration of the criticisms levelled at this new class of rights (§7).
3. The grounding: from anthropocentrism to ecocentrism
Some positions have argued that it would make no sense to grant rights to entities such as rivers, forests or mountains, given that rights are an exclusively human attribute. Broadly speaking, these positions view rights as a consequence of the concept of human dignity and are therefore rooted in a strongly anthropocentric conception (Ferry, 1992). Some supporters of animal rights, who had already revolted against this way of understanding dignity, have argued in favour of extending legal rights to other natural entities (Kymlicka, 2024). Among others, Peter Singer’s arguments against ‘speciesism’ are well known. According to Singer, the idea of dignity is rooted in a human supremacism that sanctifies our species above all others, which amounts to a morally unjustifiable argument: the attribution of rights simply by virtue of belonging to a particular species is analogous to the reasoning behind racism, according to which only members of a particular race would be deserving of rights (Singer, 2009, see Animal Ethics and Veganism). In response to this kind of approach, animal rights movements have put forward numerous arguments: from the capacity to feel pain to the capacity for self-awareness (see Animal Agency, Ecological Agency and Plant Agency). However, animal rights have always been grounded in an individualistic biocentric approach. This means that the subject of rights needs not necessarily be human, but it must be an individual. In other words, biocentrism has tended to replicate the classical liberal narrative, according to which it is not appropriate to attribute rights to groups or supra-personal entities. That is why the justification of the rights of nature has been forced to resort to a conception alternative to anthropocentrism and biocentrism, which we usually characterize as ‘ecocentric’.
4. The entitled subject: socio-ecosystems and eco-social justice
This brings us to the second issue. Ecocentrism, as opposed to anthropocentrism and biocentrism, adopts a holistic view, according to which the subject of protection is not individual, but collective (Riechmann, 2020). In this sense, the holder of rights of nature is a complex assemblage of abiotic elements—the composition of the soil, the biochemical cycles essential for the survival of the ecosystem—living beings—both animals and plants: consider the fauna and flora living on the banks of a river— and human communities. This is the case, for example, with the Wanghanui River, where the rights-holder—known as ‘Te Awa Tupua’— also incorporates the ancestors of the Maori communities living along its banks (Tănăsescu, 2022). In short, the subject holding the rights of nature is what some ecologists call a socio-ecosystem (Berkes et al., 2000). The concept of socio-ecosystem is important for understanding this type of rights, because it connects with the notion of eco-social justice, which is the actual objective of rights of nature. Indeed, unlike environmental justice, which protects nature because it yields benefits for human beings, and far from purely ecological justice, eco-social justice maintains that caring for ecosystems also protects the human groups hardest hit by the various dimensions of the ecological crisis: climate migrants, inhabitants of sacrifice zones, groups vulnerable to the increase in catastrophic weather events, etc.
5. The concept: more-than-human rights
This leads us to the question of the concept. If we are dealing with rights that do not apply solely to human beings, it does not seem feasible to continue referring to them as human rights. For this reason, some positions view the rights of nature as a milestone that has overcome anthropocentrism and ushered in a new ecocentric legal framework, in which the holder of rights is Nature considered as a whole (Vicente, 2020). However, when it comes to defining these rights, it is not easy to distinguish between what is nature and what is culture. On the one hand, because human beings are also an animal species and, therefore, belong to the vast realm of biodiversity. On the other hand, because many non-human species also possess culture and, consequently, nature can no longer be regarded as a passive backdrop against which human activity unfolds. This intertwining of the human and the natural has led some voices to speak of ‘biocultural rights’ to conceptually capture the peculiarities of the rights of nature (as in the Atrato River ruling, for example). Biocultural rights are a concept related to the more traditional claim for the rights of indigenous peoples, except that they take a step towards ecocentrism by incorporating the idea that the object of protection involves not only human interests but also the natural environment in which communities live. However, the concept that most accurately captures the specificity of rights of nature is that of ‘more-than-human rights’ (Lloredo, 2025). Indeed, if the rights-holder is a socio-ecosystem, then the rights of nature are also human rights, but not only that: they also include other species, as well as abiotic elements necessary to maintain the integrity of that ecosystem.
6. Forms of representation
As in other occasions in the history of rights—such as with children or people with disabilities—it is necessary to design systems of representation to ensure that the rights of nature are upheld. There is no ideal model, as the needs of each ecosystem and the cultures of each context vary widely. We have cases such as that of the Whanganui River, where representation of the ecosystem has been entrusted to the indigenous communities that initiated the long process of legal recognition. On other occasions, such as in the case of the Atrato, representation of the river falls to the State, which is legally categorized as a ‘custodian’ or ‘guardian’, but which must establish channels for participation so that indigenous peoples and riverside farmers have a say in decision-making (see Public Trust Doctrine). There are other models, such as that of the Mar Menor in Spain, where a three-tier system has been adopted: one of political-institutional representation, comprising the neighboring municipalities; another for social representation, comprising trade unions, environmental, youth and fishing associations, etc., operating in the area; and a third of an advisory nature, made up of specialists from the region’s universities, whose role is to advise the aforementioned bodies.
Another aspect linked to representation concerns the legal standing to take action on behalf of the ecosystems. Although there are various options here too, the general trend points to the need for anyone to be able to exercise the rights of ecosystems: otherwise, we would continue to operate within the framework of traditional environmental law, which usually requires the existence of a direct personal interest in order to be a party to environmental cases. This broadening of standing is justified by the fact that, as Pasquale Femia has argued, we are dealing with ‘trans-subjective’ rights, that is, rights that protect collective goods and which, therefore, concern us all: just as it makes sense to say ‘my health’ or ‘my freedom of expression’, it makes no sense to say ‘my climate’, because the climate is a common good that cannot be conceived within an individualistic framework (Femia, 2024).
7. Some criticisms
There are those who view this new category of rights with suspicion. On the one hand, because they believe that the protection of nature does not require such an innovation. Rather than broadening the scope of legal subjects, the aim should be to strengthen our duties towards ecosystems (Jaria i Manzano, 2013). From this perspective, the introduction of the rights of nature complicates a regulatory landscape that is already sufficiently complex. Conversely, those who defend the need for the rights of nature argue that the weakness of environmental regulations stems from a conceptual problem: as long as nature continues to be perceived as an object of exploitation, no legislation will have sufficient force to counterbalance the extractivist nature of contemporary capitalism (see Extractivism). In this sense, granting rights to nature has a symbolic effect that is essential for fostering an ecocentric worldview that is more respectful of the non-human world.
On the other hand, some ‘technical’ objections have been raised. However, there is no ‘conceptual’ obstacle in the attribution of rights to supra-personal entities, whether through the notion of legal fiction or through various techniques of representation. Other critics have argued that the scope of the subject of the rights of nature is too broad. This objection points to a real challenge, which must be resolved through consistent regulatory and jurisprudential development, aimed at establishing standards and criteria for application. Nevertheless, the following can be said: although the subjects of the rights of nature encompass very disparate interests, this is not so extraordinary, since all rights involve a range of heterogeneous positions. Consider the right to education, which protects children’s interest in receiving an education, but also the ideological freedom of parents; and consider the right to work, which encompasses at the same time a right to freedom—to choose a profession—, political rights—trade union membership—, social benefits—unemployment benefit—and even specific procedural rights: in dubio pro operario.
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