Workshop on “Rights of Nature” brings together international experts at Kassel Institute for Sustainability
International experts of different fields of expertise presented current projects and results of their research activities on the subject of “Rights of Nature”.
As part of a two-day workshop organised by the Kassel Institute for Sustainability on the subject of “Rights of Nature against whom?”, which took place at the University of Kassel from 18 to 19 July 2024, experts from a wide range of disciplines – from law over anthropology to philosophy and language sciences.
Our colleague Camilla Haake was one of 19 scientists to present her research. In her lecture “Nature […] is always right, […].“ – On coexistence, compatibility and cooperation of „rights of nature“ and human rights” she examined the relationship between the concept of so-called “Rights of Nature” and human rights law and highlighted the challenges of viewing “nature” as a legal subject for current human rights research.
The concept of “Rights of Nature” originates primarily from the traditional teachings of indigenous peoples. “Mother Earth” – also known as “Pachamama” according to the tradition of some peoples in the South American Andean region – connects humans and nature as part of the same living entity. In terms of (international) law, however, this image of nature as a legal subject collides with the anthropocentric (i.e. human-centred) world view of Western civilisations. Nevertheless, “nature” as a whole or individual rivers or mountains have increasingly been recognised as having their own rights by national legislators or courts in recent years. One example of this is the case of the Whanganui River in New Zealand, which has been recognised as a legal entity by law in 2017.
The workshop “Rights of Nature against whom?”, which was launched on 17 July 2024, with a public panel discussion on the topic and a reception, marked the conclusion of the research project “Nature as a legal person” sponsored by the German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, DFG) and led by Professor Andreas Fischer-Lescano, LL.M. (EUI) of the University of Kassel and Professor Alex Ivàn Valle Franco of the Instituto de Altos Estudios Nacionales (IAEN) and the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Ecuador. In 2008, Ecuador was the first country to pass a constitutional amendment explicitly granting subjective rights to nature as a legal subject.
At the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute of Fundamental and Human Rights (LBI-GMR), Camilla Haake is leading a research project on the subject of “Rights of Nature: on the “subjectification” of nature from the point of view of international law, in particular human rights law”, which is funded by the Ludwig Boltzmann Gesellschaft (LBG). Within this project, she is investigating the foundations of our system of human rights protection, which is primarily focussed on humans, and the possibilities of elevating “nature” to the status of an independent legal person.