28 February 2023
Towards European Rights of Nature
On 24 February, Marie-Christine Fuchs on this blog discussed the 2022 Spanish Mar Menor Act – the first rights of nature case in Europe – in light of Latin American precedents and the criticism the Act is facing from right-wing populists in Spain. Whether the Act remains the first law in Europe granting rights to a non-human natural entity will now be decided by the Spanish Constitutional Court. In her analysis of the socio-legal foundations of the Mar Menor Act, Fuchs argues that it had a “more fragile argumentative basis” than precedents in Latin America. In contrast, this article argues that the Spanish legislator succeeded in placing the Mar Menor Act on its own argumentative footing, thus opening the door for a genuinely Western liberal conception and implementation of rights of nature in Europe. Continue reading >>
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24 February 2023
Rights of Nature Reach Europe
On September 30, 2022, the Spanish Senate approved the "Mar Menor Act" (Law 19/2022) which granted legal personality to the Mar Menor lagoon and its basin. Being the first legal text in Europe to recognize a natural entity as a subject of rights, it is one more piece in the mosaic of a global movement towards ecological justice, which tries to find strong legal answers in times of global ecological crisis. In fact, the Spanish landmark decision follows the precedents of countries such as Colombia, Ecuador, New Zealand, India and the United States. In this context, it is worth asking whether the legal and socio-cultural bases of the concept of the rights of nature, as developed in the aforementioned cases, especially in those stemming from Latin America, are also sustainable in Europe and for the Mar Menor case. Continue reading >>
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