Rights of Nature and Corporate Climate Strategies: A Comparative Psycholinguistic Analysis of Codified Enactments and the Re-Signification of the Rights of Nature in Corporate and Government Policy
Year: 2026
Type: preprint
Abstract: The global movement to recognize Rights of Nature (RoN) represents a profound sociological and legal shift. Jurisdictions worldwide are increasingly codifying rights for rivers, forests, ecosystems, and other entities to exist, persist, regenerate, and maintain vital ecological cycles (Center for Environmental Rights, 2026; United Nations of Nature, 2026). RoN frameworks integrate Indigenous cosmologies, ecological jurisprudence, feminist political ecology, and posthumanist theory, positioning nature as an active subject rather than mere property or resource. The present research draws on the moderate version (linguistic relativity) of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, which claims that the framing of a phenomenon, such as rights of nature, is mediated by the linguistic categories used to describe them. This study examines how language re-signifies rights for non-humans through comparative psycholinguistic analysis between texts supporting and advancing rights of nature and texts supporting corporate approaches to sustainability that do not rely on rights language. Building on prior work that advocates for a singular, overarching rights-based paradigm for non-human entities (Drazenovich & Stroink, 2025), this investigation bridges prior doctoral research on the cognitive framing of human rights with RoN discourse (Drazenovich, 2026). By comparing RoN texts with corporate climate discourse, the study illuminates how discourse can expand (or constrain) legal personhood for non-humans.
Author: George Drazenovich
Language: English
Topic: Environmental law and policy
Subfield: Law
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7202201280