Rights of nature, legal personality, and indigenous philosophies

Aotearoa New Zealand; Critical jurisprudence; Indigenous law; Legal personality; Rights of nature; Te Urewera; Management, Monitoring, Policy and Law; Law

Abstract :

[en] This article investigates the relationship between legal personality for nature and Indigenous philosophies by comparing two cases: the Ecuadorian Constitution of 2008 and the 2014 Te Urewera Act of Aotearoa, New Zealand. Through these case studies the article considers the nature of Indigenous relations with the concept of rights of nature, arguing that this relation is primarily strategic, not genealogical. The article engages with the concept of legal personality and shows that it is not a direct translation of Indigenous conceptions, but rather a potential straitjacket for Indigenous emancipatory politics. The radical character of Indigenous ontologies is not fully reflected in the concept of legal personality. Furthermore, the way in which rights are granted to the natural environment is an important part of the effect that such rights might have on Indigenous communities. Despite some affinities between rights of the environment and Indigenous philosophies, overstating the connection might constrain the radical political and legal implications of Indigenous thought.

Disciplines :

Sociology & social sciences

Author, co-author :

Tanasescu, Mihnea ; Université de Mons - UMONS ; Vrije Universiteit Brussels, Belgium

Language :

English

Title :

Rights of nature, legal personality, and indigenous philosophies

Publication date :

November 2020

Journal title :

Transnational Environmental Law

ISSN :

2047-1025

eISSN :

2047-1033

Publisher :

Cambridge University Press

Volume :

Issue :

Pages :

429 - 453

Peer reviewed :

Peer Reviewed verified by ORBi

Additional URL :

https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/S2047102520000217

Research institute :

Soci&Ter

Funding text :

† This contribution is part of a collection of articles growing out of a Research Workshop on ‘Indigenous Water Rights in Comparative Law’, held at the University of Canterbury School of Law, Christchurch (New Zealand), on 7 Dec. 2018, funded by the New Zealand Law Foundation.* Vrije Universiteit Brussels (Belgium). Email: mihnea.tanasescu@vub.be. I would like to thank the University of Auckland’s Law School for hosting a visiting fellowship that made parts of this work possible. I am grateful to Katherine Sanders for her generosity, and to Elizabeth Macpherson for inviting me to contribute to the Research Workshop on ‘Indigenous Water Rights in Comparative Law’. This work was supported by funding from the Research Foundation Flanders (FWO) (Belgium). My sincere gratitude to the two excellent referees for their comments on earlier drafts. 1 Constitución de la Republica de Ecuador [Constitution of the Republic of Ecuador], Official Registry No. 449, 20 Oct. 2008 (Ecuador).

Data Set :

https://doi.org/10.1017/S2047102520000217

Available on ORBi UMONS :

since 25 November 2022

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