Rights of nature need more than recognition
Over the last decade, rights of nature (RoN) initiatives have flourished through legislative efforts, constitutional amendments, and judicial recognition.
Over the last decade, rights of nature (RoN) initiatives have flourished through legislative efforts, constitutional amendments, and judicial recognition. As of 2024, researchers have mapped 495 RoN initiatives across 40 countries, with Central and South America accounting for more than two-thirds of them. Last year, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACtHR) recognized nature as a subject of rights in its advisory opinion on the climate emergency and human rights, which is expected to accelerate this trend.
In many cases, courts have recognized that ecosystems have a right to protection and restoration, but they fail to provide certainty about what these rights entail.”
Although diverse in form, RoN approaches seek to treat ecosystems as legal subjects (rights-holders) rather than objects (lacking rights or interests). The RoN movement’s core goal is to create legal systems where natural entities have inherent value and accordant protections independent of their value to human beings.
In parallel, many in the RoN movement hope to expand legal protections to recognize the relationships between Indigenous communities and their territories. Often, RoN advocates argue that, by realizing more-than-human rights, the law can provide greater environmental protection and, in turn, improved enforcement of land rights and vindication of Indigenous philosophies.
Although the rapid expansion of RoN approaches is encouraging, proponents should avoid dogmatic celebration without reflection. Poorly designed RoN initiatives become “paper tigers” and can even, at worst, hamper environmental protection and Indigenous sovereignty.
Promise vs. reality
In many cases, courts have recognized that ecosystems have a right to protection and restoration, but they fail to provide certainty about what these rights entail. For instance, Colombia’s Constitutional Court declared that the Atrato River had rights in 2016 without specifying benchmarks and targets for how responsible agencies should uphold them. This vagueness leaves government agencies without compliance benchmarks, implementation frameworks, evaluation criteria, or enforcement tools. Even when legal authorities mandate specific measures or prohibitions, the programs necessary to implement them are often unfunded, which undermines restoration and protection efforts. Instead, enforcement relies almost entirely on the ability of marginalized communities—already facing obstacles to accessing legal tools and resources—to litigate and/or apply political pressure.
Even when legal authorities mandate specific measures or prohibitions, the programs necessary to implement them are often unfunded, which undermines restoration and protection efforts. Instead, enforcement relies almost entirely on the ability of marginalized communities –already facing obstacles to accessing legal tools and resources–to litigate and/or apply political pressure.”
Similarly, directives involving governance or advisory commissions have not always clearly established adequate selection criteria for these groups or the scope of their authority. At times, these directives have even excluded the most affected populations from design and implementation processes. This exclusion exposes an internal tension in the RoN project: while proponents often invoke Indigenous cosmology as a rhetorical tool, the processes they develop can exclude Indigenous communities or relegate them to subordinate roles. Indigenous concepts may be superficially grafted onto colonial legal structures without meaningful harmonization, meaning that the full meaning and weight of Indigenous legal and customary rules are not given effect or legally enforced.
The Atrato River’s court-ordered guardian commission, for example, illustrates the above failures: it was underfunded from the outset, its role and scope were insufficiently defined, and it initially lacked adequate representation of the riverine Indigenous communities most affected by illegal gold-mining and associated violence.
Colombia’s Atrato River illustrates these failures. In 2016, the Constitutional Court declared the river to have rights regarding its “protection, conservation, maintenance and restoration” (translated from Spanish). However, the court’s judgment left the content of those rights and the powers of the guardian commission it created largely unspecified. The judgment provided for only two guardians, one state delegate and one community member. The 14-person body that now represents the basin’s Afro-descendant, Indigenous, and campesino organizations came from community pressure rather than from the ruling. Those community guardians were still unpaid as of 2024 and without a dedicated budget. Similarly, Indigenous and campesino groups were left out of the implementation of a 2018 judicial ruling recognizing the Colombian Amazon as a subject of rights.
Failures of implementation
Weak implementation tends to follow from the three factors described above, namely vague rights formulations, absent or underfunded enforcement mechanisms, and limited Indigenous participation in governance design. Where these factors are present, RoN initiatives have generally fallen short of their stated goals.
For instance, illegal mining along the Atrato River in Colombia has increased since the river’s legal rights were recognized. Despite various judicial orders to restore the ecosystem and prevent further related conflict, just last year, three United Nations human rights experts declared the situation a “serious and ongoing human rights crisis.”
In Bolivia, the 2010 Law of the Rights of Mother Earth established sweeping statutory standing for ecosystems. However, the government subsequently authorized a highway project through the Isiboro Sécure National Park and Indigenous territory without the consent of resident Indigenous groups.
Despite Ecuador’s famous constitutional recognition of RoN, the government has, in some cases, ignored judicial remediation orders. Further, RoN provisions have been used to evict small-scale artisanal miners but have failed to restrict the large-scale extractive interests driving ecological destruction.
RoN movements, initiatives, and laws are spreading and may do so at an increasing rate. But considering the practical limitations and lack of substantive progress we have observed, it is worthwhile to rethink the project and brainstorm ways to energize and transform it.
The path forward
Our research in this area is motivated by a sense that supporters and critics of the RoN project are talking past each other. Both groups must acknowledge dual realities: the RoN movement and its rapid expansion have captured hearts and imaginations across the world, building awareness and igniting action for environmental protection and Indigenous rights. However, RoN legal victories will not, on their own, protect the environment and Indigenous people against various crises.
In recognition of these realities, we propose several practical steps to realize RoN’s promise to revolutionize humanity’s legal and social relationship with the Earth.
First, legislatures should provide legal frameworks that define the scope and implementation of RoN, specify which agencies are responsible, establish public participation and monitoring, and secure dedicated funding. Colombia’s Law 2415 of 2024, recognizing the rights of the Ranchería River, offers a promising model. It assigns enforcement oversight to specific government offices, contemplates participation rights for nearby communities—including Indigenous, campesino, and Afro-descendant representatives—and directs relevant entities to allocate sufficient funds for the program.
RoN has captured imaginations worldwide. The task now is to match that energy with the institutional design, funding, and community participation needed to turn declarations into durable, meaningful protections.”
Second, courts must tie their reasoning in RoN decisions to existing laws, avoiding declarations without an established legal basis. Judges should build their capacity to understand the ecological and socioeconomic complexity of the territories their decisions affect, considering the lived realities of those most affected.
Third, executive agencies should convene expert commissions to advise on the integration of Indigenous knowledge, develop guidance on guardianship, and support judicial and legislative capacity. Colombia’s Special Jurisdiction for Peace, a transitional justice tribunal created by the 2016 Peace Accord, has recognized territories as victims of armed conflict while integrating non-Western ways of thinking into its decision-making. The tribunal’s ultimate success is still in the balance, but its creation may offer a working model for how expert bodies can begin to address the gaps that plague current RoN frameworks.
RoN has captured imaginations worldwide. The task now is to match that energy with the institutional design, funding, and community participation needed to turn declarations into durable, meaningful protections.
This blog is based on an article published in the Harvard Environmental Law Review.
