Realizing Rights of Nature: Sustaining Development and Democracy
Our project, Realizing Rights of Nature: Sustaining Development and Democracy, is part of the effort to examine issues relevant to the UN’s global sustainable development goals identified in Agenda 2030. Our research project particularly focuses on the actions of a growing number of jurisdictions over the past decade and a half to grant rights to nature. States have adopted laws, local municipalities have adopted local ordinances, and courts in various countries have ruled in favor of nature for its own benefit. Our project explores the potential challenges, politics, and resistance to conceiving and implementing such Rights of Nature (RoN) initiatives. Despite the seeming novelty of these initiatives, we place RoN within the longer history of the expansion of rights and the creation of new legal subjects which has characterized the “rights revolution” that began in the mid-20th century. We will analyse four potential tensions that will help to define the relationship of liberalism to the practice of recognizing the rights and political agency of non-humans. The first is the tension between RoN and property rights. The second is the tension between RoN and human rights. The third is the tension between individual and collective rights that RoN highlights. The fourth is the ability of democratic institutions, which claim legitimacy due to popular sovereignty and the protection of human freedom, to accommodate non-human legal subjects. We will show how RoN may require liberal societies to directly confront these questions.

About the project
Duration: 2020-2024
Realizing Rights of Nature: Sustaining Development and Democracy is funded by Formas, the Swedish Research Council for Sustainable Development.
Project Publications:
Seth Epstein, "Rights of nature, human species identity, and political thought in the anthropocene," The Anthropocene Review (May 2022): 1-19. DOI:10.1177/20530196221078929
Seth Epstein, Marianne Dahlén, Victoria Enkvist, and Elin Boyer, "Liberalism and Rights of Nature: A Comparative Legal and Historical Perspective," Law, Culture and the Humanities (June 2022): 1-23. DOI:10.1177/17438721211065735
Project Researchers:
Marianne Dahlén, Universitetslektor i rättshistoria vid Juridiska institutionen, Professorer, lärare, forskare
Victoria Enkvist, Universitetslektor vid Juridiska institutionen, Professorer, lärare, forskare
Seth Epstein, forskare vid Centrum för mångvetenskaplig forskning om religion och samhälle (CRS)
Project Affiliates:
Elin Boyer, Doktarand vid Centrum för forskning vid Juridiska fakulteten
News
A Symposium: National Interest, Representation, and the State: Implications for the Recognition of Rights of Nature
When: 5 June 2023, 9:00-17:00
Where: Humanistiska teatern (Humanities Theatre),
Thunbergsvägen 3C, 752 38
Engelska Parken, Building 22, Uppsala University
Food: A vegetarian lunch will be provided.
Cost: Free. There is no cost associated with attending the symposiums
RSVP: Please RSVP by contacting Seth Epstein at seth.epstein@crs.uu.se before 26 May 2023.
The recognition of nature as a legal rightsholder has occurred in an increasing number of jurisdictions, particularly in the global South. In October of 2022, the Spanish Parliament approved the first rights-of-nature law in Europe when it recognized the legal personhood of the Mar Menor lagoon. Two questions that commonly arise when such legal recognition is contemplated are political as much as legal: how the representation of nature will be organized and the relation of its recognition as a rightsholder to concepts of the national interest. This symposium is designed to bring together scholars from different fields and members of the public for a conversation about these questions and their implications for the impact of rights of nature on democracy. To provide context and spark discussion scholars working in political and legal fields will discuss the themes of representation and national interest more broadly.
Preliminary Schedule for A Symposium: National Interest, Representation, and the State: Implications for the Recognition of Rights of Nature
Program
9.00 – 09.15: Morning Refreshments
09.15- 10.00: Introductions
Welcoming Remarks: Seth Epstein, Researcher, Centre for Multidisciplinary Research on Religion and Society, Uppsala University
Initial Address: Claes Tängh Wrangel, Researcher and Acting Managing Director at Centre for Multidisciplinary Studies on Racism (CEMFOR), Uppsala University
Title: “Dreams of a decolonial language? Critical theory and the Anthropocene”
10.00 -10.45: Presentations on National Interest
Love Rönnelid, Postdoctoral Researcher, Law Faculty, Uppsala University
Title: “Some potential implications of using rights-based argumentation in the law to protect nature”
Maria Refors Legge, Researcher, Legal Department, Swedish Defense Research Agency (FOI)
Title: “Nature as a right for future generations”
10.45- 11.30 Discussion in small groups in separate rooms
11.30-11.45 General discussion in the Humanities Theatre
11.45- 13.00 LUNCH
13.15- 14.00 Presentations on Representation
Jonas Hultin Rosenberg, Researcher, Political Science Department, Uppsala University
Topic: “The democratic representation of nature and other entities that cannot represent themselves”
Christina Allard, Associate Professor of Law, Division of Social Sciences, Luleå University of Technology
Topic: “Indigenous rights and communities' relations with nature”
14.00- 14.45 Discussion in small groups in separate rooms
14.45 -15.00 General discussion in the Humanities Theatre
15.00- 15.30 Afternoon coffee and pastries
15.30 – 17.00 Reflection and discussion in the Humanities Theatre
Pella Thiel, Knowledge Expert, United Nations Harmony with Nature Initiative
Michael Nausner, Systematic Theologian and Researcher at the Unit for Research and Analysis of the Church of Sweden
CRS Environmental and Climate Humanities Seminar
Seth Epstein, Human Species Identity in the Anthropocene: A role for rights of nature?
Moderated by Martha Middlemiss Lé Mon, CRS
When: October 13, 2022 kl. 12.00-13.00
Where: room 22-0031 (same entrance as Humanistiska teatern), see map here: https://link.mazemap.com/k1hn0pOx
Online/Zoom: https://uu-se.zoom.us/j/65781262334
A collaboration between CEMUS, Centre for Environment and Development Studies, Uppsala University and SLU, CRS, Centre for Multidisciplinary Research on Religion and Society, Uppsala University, and Sofia Oreland, Department of Theology, Uppsala University.
Higher Seminar in Public Law, Faculty of Law, Uppsala University
"Empowering nature? A multi-disciplinary approach"
This seminar serves as an introduction to our project, which examines the implications for democratic participation and political institutions of contemporary efforts to recognize nature and natural features as rights-bearing legal subjects. We will do so by comparing these efforts with the historical recognition of other legal subjects, whose acknowledgment widened the circle of civic membership. For our seminar we are circulating a draft of the project’s first article, which explains our ideas in greater detail, and are looking forward to getting feedback on the draft and discussing future directions for the project.
22 April 2021, 13:15-15:00, on Zoom
Register for the seminar to amanuensis ronja.osterud@jur.uu.se by April 16 at the latest. The article for the seminar will be distributed upon registration.
