Voice, power and legitimacy: the role of the legal person in river management in New Zealand, Chile and Australia
Year: 2020
Type: preprint
Abstract: In 2017, rivers in New Zealand, India and Colombia received legal rights and were granted the status of legal persons. The increased legal powers, often a result of groundbreaking agreements or settlements with Indigenous peoples, may improve environmental protection and river management, but they can also challenge the legitimacy of laws and regulations that protect the rivers. In this paper, we compare the new legal rights with two long-standing uses of legal personality in river management, to explore the effects of legal personality in terms of environmental resource management. We argue that governments must ensure that they get the right balance between giving rivers a voice (and the power to be heard), and creating collaborative governance arrangements that strengthen and maintain community support overtime
Source: SocArXiv (OSF Preprints)
Authors: Erin O'Donnell, Elizabeth Jane Macpherson
Institutions: The University of Melbourne, University of Canterbury
Language: English
Topic: Environmental law and policy
Subfield: Law
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W3168057354