RSS feedEvolution of Rights
_60 years ago the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was born out of the devastation of the humanitarian crisis of the Second World War. Now we have a planetary crisis. Over the past 35 years there has been an ever increasingly loud voice of those calling for proper protection of the planet. There are over 500 pieces of ‘soft’ and ‘hard’ law, social documents and individual manifestos that refer to the environment, but until now there has not yet been a comprehensive codification of the Rights of the planet, nor a recognition of our role as trustees and the responsibilities that brings with it.
Here are some of the more recent and pivotal steps of what is amounting to a culmination of thought in many fields, not just within law, that cannot now be ignored. These are the foundations upon which the Planet Earth Trust has now been built._
1971 Professor Christopher Stone asked the question of his university students, what if trees had rights? This led to the publication the following year of Should Trees Have Standing? Equally valid today, it is arguably still the most cogent case, for granting legal standing to natural objects.
1972 The Ecologist, philosopher and artist Friedensreich Hundertwasser published his manifesto “Your Window Right — Your Tree Duty” calling for the planting of trees in urban environments to become obligatory.
1982 World Charter for Nature (sets out principles of human duties and obligations to planet Earth)
1992 Declaration of Interdependence Five members of the David Suzuki Foundation team wrote the following Declaration of Interdependence in 1992 for the United Nations’ Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro.
2000 The Earth Charter, a social document comprehensively setting out our duties and responsibilities as humans to planet earth (note: it does not set out the rights of Earth), was launched on 29 June 2000.
2001 Finnish composer Pehr Henrik Nordgren wrote his Symphony no. 6 Interdependence based on the declaration of Interdependence, which also served as lyrics to the piece. It was performed for the first time in Sendai, Japan in December, 2001.
2002 Cormac Cullinan wrote Wild Law: a Manifesto for Earth Justice. Wild laws are designed to regulate human participation within this wider community. They seek to balance the rights and responsibilities of humans against those of other members of the community of beings within the natural environment that constitutes Earth (e.g. plants, animals, rivers, and ecosystems) in order to safe-guard the rights of all the members of the Earth community.
Wild laws may be distinguished from laws based on the understanding that Earth is a conglomeration of objects which human beings are entitled to exploit for their exclusive benefit (e.g. most property laws). The development of wild laws is motivated partially by the belief that it is desirable, and essential to the survival of many species (probably including humans), for us to change our relationship with the natural world from one of exploitation to a more ‘democratic’ participation in a community of other beings. This requires laws that firstly, recognise that other members of the Earth community have rights, and secondly, restrain humans from unjustifiably infringing those rights (as is done within the human community).
2003 A Universal Declaration of Animal Welfare is initiated.
2008 Ecuador votes in by referendum on the 28th September for a Bill of Nature’s Rights
Chapter 1: Rights for Nature
Art. 1. 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 organisms.* The application and interpretation of these rights will follow the related principles established in the Constitution.
Art. 2. Nature has the right to an integral restoration. This integral restoration is independent of the obligation on natural and juridical persons or the State to indemnify the people and the collectives that depend on the natural systems. In the cases of severe or permanent environmental impact, including the ones caused by the exploitation on non renewable natural resources, the State will establish the most efficient mechanisms for the restoration, and will adopt the adequate measures to eliminate or mitigate the harmful environmental consequences.
Art. 3. The State will motivate natural and juridical persons as well as collectives to protect nature; it will promote respect towards all the elements that form an ecosystem.
Art. 4. The State will apply precaution and restriction measures in all the activities that can lead to the extinction of species, the destruction of the ecosystems or the permanent alteration of the natural cycles. The introduction of organisms and organic and inorganic material that can alter in a definitive way the national genetic patrimony is prohibited.
Art. 5. The persons, people, communities and nationalities will have the right to benefit from the environment and form natural wealth that will allow well being. The environmental services are cannot be appropriated; its production, provision, use and exploitation, will be regulated by the State.
2008: Spain’s parliamentary committee votes in favor of rights for non-human primates.
On June 25, 2008, a committee of Spain’s national legislature became the first to vote for a resolution to extend limited rights to non-human primates. The parliamentary Environment Committee recommended giving chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas, and orangutans the right not to be used in medical experiments or in circuses, and recommended making it make it illegal to kill apes, except in self-defense, based upon Peter Singer’s Great Ape Project (GAP). The committee’s proposal does not yet have the force of law.