Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: In its advisory opinion on the Climate Emergency and Human Rights , the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACtHR) derived the right to a healthy climate from the right to a healthy environment protected under Article 26 of the American Convention on Human Rights (ACHR), recognizing rights of Nature (RoN) as an element of both. 1 This essay argues that these developments mark a paradigm shift from an anthropocentric approach to an ecosystemic perspective, the latter understood as an interpretive lens recognizing human beings as part of (and not separate from) interdependent ecological systems. The recognition of RoN is the legal articulation of that shift. The essay then highlights the importance of this alternative approach in the context of the climate emergency, arguing that it enables preventive legal protection at the level of ecosystems themselves and allows reparations aimed at restoring ecological integrity even where harm is cumulative and diffuse and no specific human injury can be shown. We also identify avenues for attributing and adjudicating responsibility for violations of RoN in future contentious cases, anchored in ACHR Articles 26 and 29, and outline elements of a minimum core of RoN capable of guiding their application within the Inter-American human rights system (IAS).
Source: AJIL Unbound
Institution: University for Peace
Language: English
Topic: Environmental law and policy
Subfield: Law
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W7169713890