Barry Law Environmental and Earth Law Journal

            Since its inception, the legal field has had an anthropocentric, or human centered, focus of legal rights. Even when a nature-based case come to a court the judge still views the issue in how it will impact humans and not nature itself. Nature has been considered to have property rights in that as long as an individual has gone through the proper permitting requirements, they are considered to have an interest in the land and are allowed to use it how they see fit. While there are some regulations that restrict potentially damaging use of the land, such as the clean air and water acts, the regulations often do not go further than to exclusively protect human health and welfare. The argument comes on whether there should be an initiative to extend greater protection to nature itself and begin to move away from only viewing nature as something for human use and consumption. Recently, however, there has been a resurgence of a green movement, a green new deal has been making its way around the legislative track. New Zealand has recognized that one of their rivers has its own unique rights and is considered to have personhood.^[1]Even Ecuador built in the rights of nature into their constitution acknowledging that nature has unique rights and must be protected as if it was a person.^[2]

But is the concept of extending personhood to non-people entities too farfetched for the united states at this time? Well there is some precedent for that, in the case of Citizens United v. FECthe Supreme Court extended the first amendment right of free speech, a right that is commonly focused around humans, to than of a non-person entity in terms of a corporation.^[3]  This can be used to spur on the movement to extend personhood rights to nature entities in the same vein as a corporation. 

            Some states have already begun to spearhead the movement to extend greater rights to nature. Back in 2014, there was a bloom of blue-green algae in Lake Erie that left the nearly 500,000 residents of Toledo, Ohio without clean drinking water.^[4]This spurred the movement to create greater environmental protections for the Great Lake that would protect not only the people that rely on the lake but the nature of the lake itself. The citizens created the “Lake Erie Bill of Rights” ballot initiative and it stated that “[Lake Erie] possesses the right to exist, flourish, and naturally evolve”^[5]and would recognize the right of the Lake Erie ecosystem itself to enforce its rights in an action prosecuted by the city or any resident of the city. Unfortunately, the bill was almost immediately challenged by local farmers and other interest groups which led to the Ohio legislature banning the city of Toledo from adopting the bill and even putting it on the ballot to be voted on.^[6]The residents of Toledo are still fighting for not only their right to clean water, but for Lake Erie’s right to be clean in and of itself.

The shift from viewing nature as merely a property right to a human right is a difficult change for people as some view it as putting nature on par with themselves in a court of law. There is the notion that the lake would show up to court in a suit and tie to sue companies that may have polluted it, but that is not how it would play out. It would be the concerned citizens who have their legal human rights representing nature and the rights that should be afforded to it. This legal battle reminds me of one of my favorite books growing up “The Lorax” where in it he says, “I am the Lorax. I speak for the trees. I speak for the trees because the trees have no tongue.”^[7]

^[1]Hutchison, A. (2014) ‘The Whanganui River as a Legal Person’, Alternative Law Journal, 39(3), pp. 179–182.

^[2]https://therightsofnature.org/wp-content/uploads/pdfs/Rights-for-Nature-Articles-in-Ecuadors-Constitution.pdf

^[3]Citizens United v. FEC, 558 U.S. 310, 130 S. Ct. 876 (2010)

^[4]https://lakeerieaction.wixsite.com/safewatertoledo

^[5]State ex rel. Twitchell v. Saferin, 2018-Ohio-3829, ¶ 2, 155 Ohio St. 3d 52, 52-53, 119 N.E.3d 365, 366

^[6]https://celdf.org/2019/07/rights-of-nature-ban/

^[7]Dr. Seuss, “The Lorax” (1971)