Action

Implementing the Rights of Nature

Legal cases, local ordinances, and other legal instruments arguing for or detailing the rights owed to the more-than-human world have proliferated in recent years. Not too long ago, there were only a handful of cases which dealt with the rights of the larger living world and legal personhood for nonhumans and ecosystems. Now, however, cases and initiatives of this sort number in the hundreds.

Quite understandably, attention has been skewed towards the recognition of rights, given the challenges associated with even obtaining successful rulings on the rights of nonhumans and ecosystems. Yet, as a result, there has been less meaningful engagement with what happens after recognition of these rights, including less research on how to ensure and measure implementation.

Given this, how can we strengthen the implementation of rulings and laws which recognize the rights of the more-than-human world? What happens after cases are won and laws are passed?

MOTH is working to offer answers. For example, in the spring of 2024, the MOTH Program published a report—The Impact of the Rights of Nature: Assessing the Implementation of the Los Cedros Ruling in Ecuador—that systematically analyzes implementation of the watershed ruling issued by the Constitutional Court of Ecuador that protects the Los Cedros cloud forest as a subject of rights from mining and other extractive activities. The report offers concrete recommendations to the Ecuadorian government, civil society, and other actors for how to improve implementation and safeguard this critical ecosystem.