Rivers as persons

Environmental law researcher Erin O’Donnell and economist Julia Talbot-Jones explain what’s behind recent moves to give legal personhood to rivers in India, New Zealand and elsewhere. With philosophical roots going back decades, new legal and legislative developments granting personhood to nature seek both to recognise indigenous or religious claims as well as provide new avenues for environmental protection.

But what does this mean, and how will giving rights to nature be enforced? Can rivers now bring lawsuits, and can we, in turn, sue them? Presented by Lynne Haultain.

“One of the strengths of the legal rights for nature movement,” says Erin O’Donnell, “is that it has been trying to articulate the different kinds of rights that it would make sense for natural objects to have, and they are different to human rights. We’re not envisaging a scenario where a tree could sue an insect for eating its leaves, whereas obviously humans have those kinds of inter-human rights. We’re more about saying, how can we empower this natural object to protect itself within the law?”

Adds Julia Talbot-Jones: “Water is emerging onto the international stage with such ferocity right now ... because I think there’s a growing global awareness about the pressures that our water resources are under. People are interested in trying to identify innovative ways or alternative ways in which we could think about managing these resources more efficiently, more effectively. “

Episode recorded: 1 June 2017

Up Close producer: Eric van Bemmel Audio engineer: Gavin Nebauer Banner image: Duane Wilkins/Wikimedia Commons

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