Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: Rights of nature (RoN) appear to provide a promising alternative to anthropocentric environmental rights. But do they meet the demands of transformative green constitutionalist projects? This article addresses that question by examining the juridical dimensions of RoN. We draw on empirical studies of RoN laws to identify and examine the challenges of redeploying 'rights' and 'legal personality'-concepts associated with liberal normative frameworks-in the service of green normative theory and its fundamental concern for ecological well-being. We reject the dominant rights-based paradigm, which locates the green potential of RoN laws in constituting nature as a rights-bearing legal subject, and we propose an alternative: the governance paradigm. Our alternative locates the green potential of RoN laws in reconfiguring authority relations and supports ecocentric legal frameworks instead of RoN: emphasising ecocentric values and duties instead of rights, and ecological community membership instead of legal personhood.
Source: Oxford Journal of Legal Studies
DOI: 10.1093/ojls/gqaf021
Authors: Lael K Weis, Robert Mullins
Institutions: The University of Queensland, The University of Melbourne
Language: English
Topic: Environmental law and policy
Subfield: Law
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
Estimated APC paid: $3,987
OpenAlex ID: W4411315778