In recent years, three powerful rights-based approaches to conserving biodiversity have emerged—Indigenous rights, the human right to a healthy environment, and the rights of Nature. Although these three approaches are inter-related, my research has focused on the transformative potential of the latter two, where recent legal developments at the global, regional and national levels have demonstrated both their transformative potential and barriers to implementation. In 2022, the right to a healthy environment was recognized for the first time by the UN General Assembly and incorporated in the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework. This right is now recognized in law in 166 of the UN’s 193 Member States, through constitutions, legislation, court decisions and ratification of regional treaties. One of the six substantive elements of the right to a healthy environment is healthy ecosystems and biodiversity.
The rights of Nature are also gaining legal recognition, although in far fewer nations thus far than the right to a healthy environment. Latin America is both a global biodiversity hotspot and a region where innovative rights-based approaches have been pioneered by governments and courts. While the past decade has witnessed an explosion of rights-based climate litigation, comparable rights-based biodiversity cases are at an earlier stage of development. Drawing from case studies across the world, I will illustrate how the right to a healthy environment and the rights of Nature can be used to hold governments accountable to meeting their biodiversity conservation commitments and also to transform the troubled relationship between humanity and our non-human kin.
How to cite: Boyd, D.: The Transformative Potential of Rights-based Approaches to Conserving Biodiversity, World Biodiversity Forum 2026, Davos, Switzerland, 14–19 Jun 2026, WBF2026-1034, https://doi.org/10.5194/wbf2026-1034, 2026.
