So what would rights for mother earth and nature look like? One of the most important factors is that it would enable legal systems to maintain vital ecological balances by balancing human rights against the rights of other members of the Earth community.

Presently many environmentally harmful human activities (including those that cause climate change) are completely lawful. Most legal systems define everything, that is not a human being or a corporation, as property. Just as slave laws, which turned humans into property, entrenched an exploitative relationship between the two, our legal systems have entrenched an exploitative and inherently damaging relationship between ourselves and Earth. Even most environmental laws do little more than regulate the rate at which environmental destruction may take place.

If legal systems recognized the rights of other-than-human beings (e.g. mountains, rivers, forests and animals), courts and tribunals could deal with the fundamental issues of environmental contamination rather than being bogged down in the technical details of permitted pollutants and emissions. For example, a rights-based approach could evaluate whether the rights of humans to clear tropical forests for beef ranching should trump the right of species in those forests to continue to exist. Instead of devising ever more complex schemes to authorize environmental damage and to trade in the right to pollute, we would focus on how best to maintain the quality of the relationship between ourselves and Earth.

In 1948, when the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was proclaimed, it was a declaration of hope into a post-war world. It had no legal basis as a document. Sixty years on the declaration has been incorporated into the laws of many countries and been the basis for the International Criminal Court. Facing a crisis far worse than any world war, might it not be time for humanity to launch a new declaration, one that defends our planet and its biodiversity from ever-continuing extinction?

Pablo Solón is the Bolivian ambassador to the United Nations. Cormac Cullinan practices as an environmental lawyer and is the author of Wild Law: A Manifesto for Earth Justice. You can follow his posts on Twitter: www.twitter.com/pablosolon

On December 22nd 2009 the UN General Assembly passed a resolution which put the issue of Mother Earth rights as an item on the UN agenda. By a text titled “Harmony with Mother Earth” –- the first of its kind to be tabled in the Second Committee –- the Assembly invited Member States, relevant United Nations and other organizations to present their views to the Secretary-General on a possible declaration of ethical principles and values for living in harmony with Mother Earth. To read what was tables and voted on here is the link.

https://www.un.org/press/en/2009/ga10907.doc.htm

Nature’s Rights Conference was co-hosted by MEPs Pavel Poc, Vice-Chair of ENVI Committee; Benedek Jávor, Vice-Chair of ENVI Committee; and Marco Affronte, ENVI Committee Member. This event: “Nature’s Rights Conference" : brought together a high-level panel to discuss how granting legal rights to mother earth and nature might help to create the paradigm shift needed to live more sustainably and harmoniously within our planet’s limits.

Luc Bas, Director, IUCN European Regional Office provided one of the keynote speeches sharing IUCN’s views on rights for nature. IUCN and its Members clearly recognize the importance of nature’s rights as the resolution “Incorporation of the Rights of Nature as the organizational focal point in IUCN decision making”  was  adopted at the IUCN World Conservation Congress 2012 in Jeju. The Resolution invites IUCN and its Members to promote the development of a Universal Declaration of the Rights of Nature as a first step towards reconciliation between human beings and the Earth as the basis of our lives, as well as the foundations of a new civilizing pact. Since then, the Rights for Nature has also been referenced in the IUCN Global Program-me 2017-2020, adopted in at the IUCN World Conservation Congress 2016 in Hawaii.

Non profit organization Right of Mother Earth web site link: http://www.rightsofmotherearth.com/a-world-that-considers-nature%E2%80%99s-rights

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC1iNG-XeP8dCjCmQTfUfPbw/videos