More Than Human Rights

This book includes contributions from leading lawyers, scientists, philosophers, and writers from around the world who participated in the inaugural gathering of the More-Than-Human Rights (MOTH) project. The volume discusses the philosophical, legal, and scientific foundations of the MOTH framework as well as its implications for ideas and practices in fields such as law, human rights, ecology, politics, and storytelling.

Building on the invitation of Indigenous knowledge and ecological sciences to expand our sensorial and moral horizon and see ourselves again as part of Earth’s web of life, the provocation of this book is to locate rights in the more-than-human world. Among the questions guiding the book are: What theoretical and legal approaches can solidify the foundations of the rights of nature? How do findings from the natural sciences, Indigenous knowledge, and other fields shed new light on the idea of the rights of nature? What types of nonhuman entities should be protected? What types of rights should they be recognized as holding? What are the lessons from existing legislation, constitutional provisions, and lawsuits that embrace this notion? More broadly, how can we conceive of “human rights without human supremacism”?