RSS feedA call to the UN
On the 6th November 2008 in Belfast at the United Nations (UN-UKA) Climate Change Conference, Polly presented a call for planetary rights (The 6 rights proposed for hard law implementation are : the Right to Diversity, the Right to Ecological Integrity, the Freedom of the Natural Cycles of Life, the Right to Not Be Polluted, the Right to Restorative Justice, the Freedom of a Healthy Environment. See The Planetary Rights for more detail). Our planet is in crisis, and the United Nations are uniquely placed to implement the necessary foundations to create a new world where prevention and protection stand hand in hand.
We now know that we need to realign our role – away from one of owner, to one of Trustee of Planet Earth – with identification of the values that shape our responsibilities to all beings.
A Cry From The Earth
This planet we call Earth is no longer a place of honour. For too many years we have abused and despoiled it, taken wilfully without regard to the consequences. We have depleted fossil fuel reserves, we have created escalating emissions, we have polluted, poisoned, damaged, destroyed and caused the extinction of numerous species.
We now know that it is because of human activity that we have a planet out of balance. The evidence is conclusive: Climate Change, with it’s escalating greenhouse gases, is a symptom of our greedy consumption of planet Earth. It threatens the very life of all remaining species, plant forms, oceans and waterways as well as human life. James Hansen of NASA has called for us to reduce our emissions to 350 ppm – that is an amount that is now less than current levels (which stand at 385ppm). It is not merely a matter of reducing our emissions by 50%, 80%, 100% as soon as possible, but to evolve and encourage a benign world where we no longer cause damage, pollution and loss.
Climate Change is a symptom of the damage we, humans, have caused by our excessive consumption of the Earth’s resources. We now know that such actions carry destructive consequences – indeed all actions carry consequences – some far more damaging than others. Equipped with the knowledge that the planet’s imbalance is caused by humankind’s actions, comes the duty to act now.
A Call To Protect
Our planet is however not beyond rescue. What is required is a seismic shift in our consciousness, not a mere reduction of our emissions. The seismic shift should give full recognition that we now owe a duty of care to our beautiful planet. No other planet in our solar system has such variety of species, species that we are losing at an unprecedented rate. Now it is time to provide protection to our planet.
Just as the humanitarian crisis of the Second World War gave birth to the swift implementation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights 60 years ago in 1948, so now we have a planetary crisis that needs to be addressed with equal urgency. Now is the time to call for a Universal Declaration of Planetary Rights.
This is my call to the United Nations to protect our world. My plea is for co-operation, not confrontation. It is your support that will provide the voice to make this happen. Please help us in our call to protect our one beautiful and fragile planet.h2. Our World Of Disconnect
We flatter ourselves when we say we all exist in a sophisticated world, in a developed society. In fact we are not sophisticated at all. It is the core difference between materialism and our spiritual connection with nature. This means that we have become disconnected with nature. We simply look upon it as a resource, a thing to be used. And it is an entirely selfish relationship. For example, when we go to the park for a walk, when we rush off to our second homes in the countryside. For most of us with our city jobs and offices in the urban world, it is not something that we connect with and give thanks to on a regular and daily basis. We look at our environment, but we do not see it because of our disconnection. This blindness is all the greater for those who exist in an urban environment.
In truth what I want to encourage is for humankind to grow out of their long adolescence in terms of their relationship with the environment. Polluting the planet is akin to a teenager trashing his bedroom. Sooner or later the teenager will grow up and become responsible for that environment. That time has come for us. It is an opportunity for us to demonstrate the true maturity and sophistication that we can be.
It is only with the acquisition of knowledge, wisdom and experience that we recognize that a relationship cannot flourish where it is all take and no give. This is an echo of our own personal experiences with others in our adult lives. Just as the outer and the inner breath are equally important in maintaining our own body systems, so it is for a successful relationship to thrive and flourish: both giving and taking in equal measure is required for our lives to be in harmony. And so it is with relationships – it is about the harmony that occurs when there is a happy alliance of reciprocity and mutual support.
Comac Cullinan, the founder of EnAct International and author of Wild Law, puts it thus:
“A relationship characterized by strong and mutually beneficial interconnectivity can be described as intimate. If it is to be a lasting relationship, it must also exhibit features such as exchange and reciprocity that benefit all involved.”
This is a universal truth, applicable equally to humans as it is to other earth communities. The benefit is the fostering of a dynamic balance. The relationship will last and contribute to the maintenance of the whole.
Trees
Without the trees we wouldn’t be here. Trees are our life givers, the very sentinels of our planet. Trees provide us with wood for us to build with, paper to write on as well as a source to burn for heat. They protect us and the soil from the sun and the rain. They cool the air in hot dry weather by the transpiration of water vapour into the atmosphere. Their roots take water and nutrients from the soil and help bind the soil together on hills and mountain-slopes. Most importantly, they act as carbon sinks and manufacture oxygen: counterbalancing global warming. Even in death they enrich the soil. Without trees this would be a barren world.
Just 3 days ago (Monday 3rd November 2008) scientific findings were published, establishing that the release of the chemical Terpene from tree canopies leads to cloud formation that cools the climate. Given the ancient forests’ massive canopies, these findings serve to underline and reinforce the critical role of trees and wilderness in maintaining a viable atmosphere. Yet, we continue to take selfishly from the planet. Logging continues on an unprecedented scale and rate, destroying the lungs of the planet. What do the logging companies do in return? Nothing more than treat the trees with contempt.
Away from the contempt of logging companies, at the polar opposite end of the scale, let me give you a snapshot closer to home of our contempt for our trees. In the past five years, London councils alone have chopped down almost 40,000 street trees, including some more than 100 years old. Some were aged, diseased or dying, but 40 per cent were removed because of insurance claims. Healthy mature trees are being felled by risk-averse insurers and councils because of the mere suspicion that they may affect neighbouring properties with subsidence, or fall on people. Yet a report commissioned by the London Assembly said that only 1 per cent of tree-removals were justified. It found that, despite the key role they play in combating climate change, and creating pleasant environments (the report’s own words), Britain’s urban trees are under threat. Only 11 per cent of trees in towns are now between 50 and 100 years old, the survey discovered; only two per cent are more than 100 years old. That means: when they get big, they get chopped down. Here is my experience:
Back in January of this year I popped into my local auction house on Essex Road, Islington. Outside stood two freshly felled trees – all that remained of over 100 years growth were their stumps, so freshly cut they leached fluid from their gaping wounds. It just so happened that a man was standing close by explaining to another that they were felled because of their roots were at risk of getting in the way of the building structure. The very trees that had provided beauty on a barren and ugly stretch of road, that had provided shelter and acted as carbon sinks to the fumes of the heavy traffic that roared heedlessly past. What a skewered world we live in: how long will it take us to recognise that the trees, who in this instance had been in place far longer than the building, should be able to assert their right to complain about the building hampering their growth, their right to remain, to simply be?
None of us come with clean hands. If nature is a hindrance we get rid of it, destroy it. If it has utility we abuse it. We do not accept the killing of life of humans, what we term in law the unlawfulness of genocide. But what of other life-support systems of the earth? Could it not be that the razing of the Amazon is in essence arboricide of the highest order?
Tree Rights
But trees, as we know them, remain largely unprotected; they do not have rights. To my way of thinking this is flawed and erroneous.
We accord rights to abstract entities such as corporations, churches, universities, councils, governments – yet, unlike trees or any plant matter they are intangible. They are but abstract concepts that we, humans have created. We have created the legal rights for a corporation to stake it’s claim on a piece of land, call it property and then use or abuse that land in whichever manner it sees fit.
The entities that exist on that land – the trees, the birds, the water, the fish, indeed the very soil itself – have no rights at all. You can see, smell, touch those entities; they grow and manifest themselves in tune with the seasons and we benefit from their bounty. In all senses a tree is therefore real.
But a corporation is not tangible in the way a tree is. It is an artificial concept that we have created for our benefit. It is a fiction, but it has standing in court. The trees, the river, the deer does not.
Yet we have an interdependent relationship with all these other entities – these other earth communities – animals, soils, flora, fauna, fish. All is inter-connected.
Rights Of Others In History
When one provides a thing with rights, an ethical relationship is automatically created. But if it that thing remains merely property – property for the use of humans – then no rights exist.
We see this in history. Historically certain categories of human being were deemed to be property, and thus denied rights. In Roman law, children were treated as property and a man could have his son or daughter put to death if he so wished. Slavery was predicated on the idea that a slave was not a person with rights, but a thing to be treated as property. Indigenous peoples, Jews, Chinese have all been denied the most basic of rights. But today, all of them have a substantial basket of rights. In the UK, until very recently there was a long history of women in marriage in the UK being considered as chattels to a marriage . This has had substantial effect on how a married woman is now viewed in the eyes of the courts. It was not until 1991 that it was determined by the House of Lords that matrimonial rape was a reality, and that the husband could no longer rely on the rule of law that a wife, by dint of marriage alone, was deemed to have consented irrevocably to sexual intercourse with her husband.
It is now the norm that domestic violence is taken seriously. But even this norm took some years before it had filtered down to humankind’s consciousness. Prior to 1991, that which occurred behind closed doors was deemed the preserve of the ‘owner’, the husband, who had the right to treat his chattel as he wished.
In UK childcare proceedings a child now has recognisable rights. Of course that child is unable to formulate it’s own sophisticated representation on the issues to be determined, but he or she can be represented in court by what is called a Guardian ad Litem who speaks on his/her behalf. The child’s welfare shall be the court’s paramount consideration. The court must have regard to, inter alia, the ascertainable wishes and feelings of the child concerned; … his physical, emotional and educational needs; the likely effect on him of any change in his circumstances;… any harm which he has suffered or is at risk of suffering…
This child, who cannot exercise such rights themselves, can have legal proceedings instituted on their behalf to protect their welfare.
Likewise the tree cannot exercise rights. But if rights were to be accorded to them, individuals or groups should be able to apply to the court for legal guardianship, and for the right to litigate on behalf of the natural object.
Restorative Justice
Much of our justice system is based on retributive justice – penalties designed to penalise the perpetrator, largely by way of fine or, in more extreme conditions, imprisonment. But what of the entity that has been harmed? The inadequacies are even more apparent when dealing with action by humans that results in the destruction of the wider Earth Community. Although imposing a fine on corporations who harm the environment may have a deterrent effect (and this in itself is questionable), it does not repair the damaged relationship. In reality fines are blunt instruments. They are either passed through a company’s insurance or back to the consumer. All too frequently it is just another cost factor that’s built into any profit calculation – a factored in price to pay for doing as they as they so desire.
In recent years we have begun to see a surge in the application of restorative justice, with growing success. The Peace and Reconciliation Commission established in South Africa to investigate apartheid crimes adopted a restorative justice approach. Closer to home, innovate and successful projects such as The Glasgow Restorative Justice Service, set up in 2003, works to encourage young people to take active responsibility for the affects of their behaviour on not only those harmed, but themselves, their families and the wider community. Similar schemes are being piloted in London.
The Story Of Copernicus
Copernicus discovered the earth revolved around the sun, not vice versa. In other words, we, humans and Earth, were not placed at the very epicenter (which had been regarded as proof that God had made us the centre of the universe), but rather we were but one part of a larger system. For asserting what was deemed a radical and dangerous view, Copernicus was ridiculed, punished, and force was used in attempt to make him recant. But, in doing so, what was overlooked was that his assertion made no difference in reality. If he was correct (as indeed he turned out to be) it only proved that the earth revolving around the sun was not as disastrous as was thought.
Likewise, the seismic shift that is required now is equally Copernican in scope: a move of one’s reference point, of how we understand the world, away from a purely human-centered mechanistic one, to a more earth based, holistic, ecological world view.
What we require is a clear recognition that our human existence and well-being are dependent on the well-being of the larger Earth Community, out of which we were born and which we depend on for our continued survival. Without a living earth we will not survive. The reverse cannot be said; that without humans, the planet would fail to survive.
What Rights?
Others have argued that natural objects should have at least three basic rights: the right to institute legal action at their own behest; the right to have injuries to them taken into account in determining legal relief; and the right to benefit from that relief.
In other words, the creation of an ethical relationship with nature. This is a plea to start thinking in less “homocentric” terms. We are not protecting natural objects for future human generations; we are protecting them for themselves. The environment does not exist for man; it may be that man exists for the environment.
Humans are members of an earth community and we cannot ignore the rights of that wider community, which makes our own existence possible. We need a new body of law whose first priority is to protect the ecological community in which we live. Imagine if we had here in the UK an Earth Rights Act, after all, we have a Human Rights Act. Like the Childrens Act, one that stipulated that the overriding objective is the well-being of the planet. Think how that would change how we approach business, how we determine our choice of energy supplies, how it would shape our transport policies.
This is not so radical. Look to Ecuador. Sunday 28th September 2008 brought a historic moment in the evolution of protection of our planet. By an overwhelming margin, the people of Ecuador voted for a new Constitution that is the first in the world to recognize legally enforceable Rights of Nature, or ecosystem rights. Ecuador is now the first country in the world to codify a new system of environmental protection based on rights. The people of Ecuador are leading the way for countries around the world to fundamentally change how we protect nature.
Article 1 of the new “Rights for Nature” chapter of the Ecuador constitution reads:
“Nature or Pachamama, where life is reproduced and exists, has the right to exist, persist, maintain and regenerate its vital cycles, structure, functions and its processes in evolution. Every person, people, community or nationality, will be able to demand the recognitions of rights for nature before the public bodies.”
Ecuador’s constitution recognises that ecosystems possess the inalienable and fundamental right to exist and flourish, and that people possess the legal authority to enforce those rights on behalf of ecosystems, and the requirement of the government to remedy the violations of those ecosystem rights. Article 1 is so eminently sensible – how can that not be true? It’s not a granting of rights, it is merely recognising a pre-existing reality.
What is so interesting is that this Constitution has been borne out of crisis and driven at local municipal government level. Because there have been so many abuses, pollution, violence and corruption by foreign mining companies, the people revolted against this so-called development by central government. Thus, this remarkable piece of legislation was borne of the people taking responsibility for their land.
Other countries, such as Ethiopia, others where indigenous rights are recognised and who have a closer relationship with their land also have put in place similar legislation to help protect their environment. It is interesting that it is the countries of the developing world, the ones who suffer the highest levels of environmental crisis at the hands of the developed world’s corporations, are the ones who are the first to recognise the need for planetary protection – and the first to act.
Why A Universal Declaration Of Planetary Rights?
Our laws are built on the premise that we have superior rights to the planet. It is these superior rights without thought for the consequences that has led us to our current crisis. It is our laws that have given us the rights to take and to pollute so extensively, that we see as the norm. It is those very rights that have created so much damage and as a conseqence an imbalance in our ecosphere so great that it is threatening to destabilize all of earth and mankind. We have to redress the imbalance, to ensure the scales of ecological justice are balanced once again. After all, our commonality is the earth we walk on, the soil that feeds our plants, the trees and ultimately us.
Law shapes our societies, our way of thinking, our behaviour. By imposing upon land the concept of it being a “commodity that can be owned and dealt with in a similar fashion to, say, a table, legal systems legitimize and encourage the abuse of Earth by humans.
Time is short, the solutions are there, but they need to be implemented swiftly. Mere technology is but one solution, it is a tool, although a very useful tool at that. But as I hope I have demonstrated, more than only that is required. We need to protect this beautiful planet, and to ensure that such protectionism is effective and global in application. For that we need the use and support of laws. Much as a voluntary code is useful and even desirable, we know from past experience when leaving corporations to implement their own voluntary codes in reality achieves little of true substance. It is the national and international laws that will provide the powerful shift in consciousness that is required. After all, “a right that cannot be enforced is not a right at all”.
What was once acceptable behaviour (eg. slavery) becomes unacceptable when a paradigm shift takes place in our consciousness. Our understanding of what is the acceptable premise is realigned. But this does not happen gradually, it happens quite dramatically – it is a seismic shift in consciousness of such proportions that one could call it a Copernican Revolution.
Towards A Universal Declaration Of Planetary Rights
A Universal Declaration of Planetary Rights is of course not the end of the matter, it is but the first step. Just as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights has not given us a perfect world where all live in harmony without torture, freedom of speech and assembly, neither would a Universal Declaration of Planetary Rights provide an instant fix. However, just as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights provided the language, the inspiration and the legal ability for humans to seek redress on their own behalf and on behalf of others breaches of our fundamental rights, so a Universal Declaration of Planetary Rights would provide inspiration and legal ability for other Earth Communities to seek justice.
A Universal Declaration provides the initial tools, which as with Human Rights, provide a foundation upon which they can be implemented into national legislation. These are the tools that provide instruction and education to resolve the conflicts that come thereafter.
The mechanisms of a Universal Declaration of Planetary Rights would balance and contextualise the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It would balance and contextualise the rights of the other members of the community. This is my unifying call. But this is not so radical. Indeed my call is sensible. To implement a Universal Declaration of Planetary Rights is merely the recognition by humans of the existing reality. The reason we do not see this is because of our human created illusions. Reality is on our side; the fact is we are part of this earth community and we can only remain in it if we obey certain rules. As things stand just now, our laws exclude us. By recognising those rights that already exist, we make visible that reciprocal relationship that we are in reality part of. You do not have to believe me – go look at nature, check science, we are definitely part of the system, the evidence is clear. If we do not play by the rules of nature or respect the limits we cause huge problems, as we now know.
This is not a new ideology but a matter of giving language to express the reality that exists all around us. This is not a radical idea, but a sensible approach. It is in essence really sensible that we recognise the inter-connect and really sensible to give legality for that and just as did for Human Rights. We need to recognise that connect with the wider community.
In practical terms a Universal Declaration of Planetary Rights would also provide the mechanism and the machinery to correct and address the errant and selfish human behaviour towards the environment. It would provide the means and power to redress the balance.
We have to halt the irreversible loss, damage and destruction of this planet if we are to become sustainable for future generations. A Universal Declaration of Planetary Rights can do that. The United Nations are uniquely positioned to make this happen.
Like a mighty tree, a Universal Declaration of Planetary Rights would provide the strong roots to secure the future growth of a solid trunk of rights. Out of this trunk would sprout the equally strong branches representing the implementation of national legislation. This is our opportunity to put in place the foundations for a better future of the planet. Which is why I call upon you, the United Nations, to plant this particular tree without delay.