The ‘BOKU-KINO: Film Series with Discussion’, which takes place once a month, was dedicated to the topic of ‘Rights of Nature’ on 14 May 2025. The programme for the film and discussion evening included the documentary film ‘Invisible Hand’ by Mark Ruffalo, Joshua Boaz Pribanic and Melissa A. Troutman, which raises the question: ‘Who will speak for nature?’ The film reports on environmental initiatives in the USA in which citizens are trying to grant nature its own rights. The focus is on the attempt by residents of the city of Toledo, Ohio, to recognise the heavily polluted Lake Erie as a legal entity and grant it a subjective ‘right to exist’ in order to better protect it from environmental destruction, such as agricultural fertiliser pollution. The film also shows the efforts of residents of Grant Township (Pennsylvania) and indigenous groups defending their groundwater against fracking waste.

Michael Klingler, Institute for Sustainable Economic Development at BOKU, moderated the subsequent discussion with René Kuppe, Institute for Legal Philosophy at the University of Vienna, Directory Board IWGIA (International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs), Nadja Polzer, Institute for Law at BOKU, and our colleague Camilla Haake, PostDoc at the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute of Fundamental and Human Rights (LBI-GMR). Together with the interested audience, they discussed, among other things, the legal-theoretical and legal-philosophical foundations of the concept of ‘rights of nature,’ concrete examples of the recognition of “nature” or individual ecosystems as legal entities in South America, New Zealand and Spain, as well as opportunities and obstacles for nature conservation and environmental protection through ‘rights of nature.’

René Kuppe pointed out that the concept of “rights of nature” in South America is based on indigenous cosmovisions of an original unity between nature and humans, which makes it difficult to transfer the protection of a subjective nature to other legal systems.

Nadja Polzer emphasised that effective and efficient environmental protection – with or without ‘rights of nature’ – can only succeed with the consistent participation of relevant stakeholders, which is not consistently observed in current environmental and nature conservation law.

Our colleague Camilla Haake conducts research at the LBI-GMR in the program line “Sustainability, Development, Business, Social” (NEWS) on topics such as human rights and the environment, human rights and business and “rights of nature”. During the panel discussion, she explained the pros and cons of a ‘subjectification’ of nature and emphasised the need for a dogmatically clear establishment of ‘rights of nature’, especially in the context of (continental) European legal systems such as those in Austria and Germany.

The ‘BOKU Cinema’ is a collaboration between the BOKU Ethics Platform, the BOKU Coordination Office for Equality, Diversity and Disability, the Institute for Development Research, the ÖH BOKU (with support from Anna Huber and Deborah Sailer), supported by Michael Klingler (WiSO) and Anna Ladinig (IFFI, International Film Festival Innsbruck).