LEGAL PERSONHOOD AND THE RIGHTS OF NATURE: Bridging Relationality and State Law to Protect Sri Lankan Rivers from Pollution
Year: 2025
Type: dissertation
Abstract: River pollution is a critical problem in contemporary Sri Lanka, indicating a failure of the law to safeguard our rivers. After more than 400 years of colonial rule, current state-based river protection laws in Sri Lanka still predominantly reflect Western legal concepts that have attracted criticism for anthropocentric bias. By contrast, many local and Indigenous worldviews and legal systems in Sri Lanka embody profound relationships with rivers, making river pollution fundamentally antithetical to their understandings. The emerging global trends of legal personhood and the rights of nature aim to shift from anthropocentric legal principles in environmental protection towards the concept of ‘relationality’, which sees all things as connected. Notably, efforts to recognise legal personhood and the rights of nature in various jurisdictions draw inspiration from customary, religious, and Indigenous perspectives on nature. This thesis investigates the potential to integrate relational values into Sri Lanka’s Western-influenced legal framework for river protection. Through the black-letter approach, socio-legal research, and international and comparative research, the thesis draws on primary research conducted in Sri Lanka and lessons from international law and the comparative jurisdictions of Ecuador, New Zealand, India, and Bangladesh. It proposes a broader recognition of relationality in Sri Lanka’s river protection efforts by adopting legal personhood and the rights of nature, using the ‘River Person’ model. The thesis guides lawmakers by presenting the case for wider recognition of relational worldviews and pluralistic legal concepts in state-based river protection laws in Sri Lanka. It also makes a novel and original contribution to the existing body of knowledge, addressing a topic that has received little attention within the scholarly literature on Sri Lanka.
Source: Figshare
DOI: 10.25949/30349714
Author: Edirisinghe, Asanka Amitharansy
Language: English
Topic: Environmental law and policy
Subfield: Law
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7114912827