The Earth is becoming more and more inhospitable, its climate is becoming violent, its forests decimated, its soils, waterways and oceans polluted and overexploited, threatening the foundations of life itself.
This is why, on the International Day for Biodiversity on May 22, the Secretary-General of the United Nations Organization called for building a shared future for all forms of life and urged States to show “a global will to action — a transformation of our relationship with nature”.
In this spirit, and for several years, many States have adopted laws on the rights of nature, by legislative or jurisprudential means, as in Bolivia, Panama, Mexico and Uganda. In Ecuador, since 2008, the rights of nature have even been enshrined in the Constitution. Nature thus has, in these countries, the constitutional right to full respect for its existence and to the maintenance of its vital cycles and of all the elements that form an ecosystem.
The precautionary principle is constitutionalized in such a way as to prevent any extinction of species, any destruction of ecosystems or to permanently alter its natural cycles.
In Colombia, India, Bangladesh, New Zealand and Australia, many rivers, as well as other ecosystems, have also been recognized as moral and living entities whose interests can be defended in court by way of representation. .
Custodians have been appointed and biocultural rights recognized for the indigenous peoples who have lived there since time immemorial.
The movement expands
In Europe, this movement is also spreading: the Mar Menor, in Spain, will probably become the first ecosystem recognized as a subject of law by legislative means following the authorization of the presentation of a popular initiative law in this direction. . The Territorial Assembly of Corsica has already recognized the rights of the Tavignanu river. A project to recognize the legal personality of the Rhône is under discussion between Switzerland and France. In the Netherlands and Ireland, motions have also been passed by districts to ̀ recognize the rights of nature.
of the right to exist
However, what is less known is often very close. Since 2006, in the United States, about thirty American cities or counties and five indigenous nations have recognized the rights of natural communities on their territory, very often rivers, in Pennsylvania, California, Idaho and Florida.
In the Great Lakes region, an initiative is underway to recognize their right to exist, flourish and evolve naturally, but also not to be polluted.
Already, the city of Toledo has voted to recognize Lake Erie rights, the White Earth Band in Minnesota has taken steps to protect the lakes in its territory by recognizing the rights to a wild rice, the manoomin, including that to pure water.
At the other end of the hydrographic system linking the Great Lakes to the Atlantic, a courageous decision was made in 2021. The MRC of Minganie, on the North Shore of Quebec, and the Innu Council of Ekuanitshit, each adopted a resolution recognizing the rights of the Magpie River, including the right to be free from pollution, the right to maintain its integrity and the right to flow freely into the Gulf of St. Lawrence.
But what about the St. Lawrence River itself and its basin between the Great Lakes and the estuary? It is made up of interconnected and interdependent ecosystems, home to exceptional biodiversity; its hydrographic system contains more than 25% of the world’s freshwater reserves.
Doesn’t it now seem vital to better preserve it, in the light of the current climate and ecological crisis? Recognizing the St. Lawrence Basin as a living, indivisible entity is a real subject of law that would make it possible, in the most effective way possible, to preserve it for current and future generations.
I salute the work of the International Observatory for the Rights of Nature, which is at the origin of the presentation, on May 5, both to the National Assembly of Quebec and to the House of Commons of Canada , of two similar bills proposing the recognition of the St. Lawrence River as a legal person.
Protecting the St. Lawrence River by recognizing its inalienable rights will enable it to fully play its role in sustaining life on Earth and will prove to be a great service rendered to all of humanity.
Indeed, yes, more broadly, we must dare to radically rethink our place in the world, redefine new rules for living together that would include non-humans and adopt law and governance centered on respect for the Earth system. Already in August 2016, the Secretary General recognized in his annual report on harmony with nature that the current laws relating to the environment “are ineffective because of their conceptual basis”. He proposed to adopt a jurisprudence of the Earth in order to affirm an occulted reality: the fundamental rights of humanity are interdependent of the right of nature to exist.
Indeed, if the conditions of life itself are threatened on Earth, how could we hope to guarantee humanity its right to a healthy environment, to accessible and pure water, to unpolluted air and soil? , to food, to health and even to housing, in short to decent living conditions? In addition, the normative, but also philosophical shift that consists in recognizing the rights of nature would allow us to grant humanity a preponderant role in the preservation of other forms of life and to act according to the precautionary principle, beneficial for future generations.