Whales, Rice, and Waves: Recent Developments in the More Than Human Rights Movement

Since the landmark ruling in Ecuador in 2021 stopping mining activities in the Cloud Forest »Los Cedros« citing the »rights of the forest« the concept of Rights of Nature (RoN) has gained a lot of attention. RoN are currently introduced or fought for in many parts of the world as a – potentially – powerful legal strategy in order to protect biodiverse ecosystems. RoN obviously have a close connection to biodiversity since they are protecting ecosystems rather than individual organisms, species or specific (a)biotic factors of the environment. Many scholars have argued that RoN are also an acknowledgement of biodiversity’s intrinsic value, insofar as they are granted on behalf of nature. My argument starts with the observation that well known cases of RoN are primarily fought for and granted to attractive, relatively undisturbed biodiversity hotspots, often situated in the global south. While these »organismic like« ecosystem are especially well suited for raising awareness for RoN, the question remains how natural entities that deviate from the above mentioned qualities can be introduced in a RoN framework.

Specifically, I will ask, first, how already degraded and/or polluted landscapes challenge our conception of RoN. The second challenge for RoN are cases where rights are not given to nature as apart from humans but to human-nature entangled diversity, as for example the case for Manoomin (wild rice) in 2018. The third challenge concerns potential natural legal subjects that are either difficult to grasp due to their constitution, life-style or size, like fungi or waves, not well known, like the deep sea, or adverse to human health, like viruses.

I raise these challenges because they are part of an – ongoing – evolution of the theoretical and legal development of RoN. These challenges can thus be seen as a second shift in our conception of and relationship with nature within the RoNframework, drawing attention to humanity’s diverse and conflicted relationship with nature.