The other day, I scanned some of my bookmarks of interesting topics and came upon a Guardian article (referenced below) about granting legal rights and protection to non-humans. As the article cites, the report for UK’s Law Society recommends that «Granting legal rights and protections to non-human entities such as animals, trees and rivers is essential if countries are to tackle climate breakdown and biodiversity loss.» The article further says that Bolivia and Ecuador have already enshrined rights for the natural world.
Now, I am neither a lawyer, nor an environmentalist and I do support better protection of the environment, but I am not sure how such a thing will be different from today’s setup. In the US, for example, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is tasked with protecting anything related to the environment, namely, animals, plants, air, and water. It is also tasked with protecting the environment in which humans live, which includes land, animals, plants and water bodies.
I have not read the report, and even if I had, I doubt I would have understood the language, but I guess what the report suggests is to give these non-human entities individual rights and protection, just as humans have individual rights and protection before the law. The catch, however, is who is going to claim those rights on behalf of those animals, plants, rivers, and so on? Rights are a concept created by humans to protect and ensure the well-being of other humans, but animals, plants and rivers are not capable of understanding or exercising these rights. So I would expect that it will fall upon the governments and their respective agencies to act on behalf of these entities, which brings us back to current situation (EPA, and etc). Unless ......
We treat these entities as minors and consider them not capable of understanding or exercising their rights, and thus require them to have guardians to act on their behalf. Just like minors. Going one step further, we would consider the governments as the natural guardians, just as parents are for minors, unless they are challenged by someone or an organisation as unfit, just like custody and guardianship battles that happen in the case of minors.
What a future that will be! Before fighting for the environment, organizations and governments will go to court to fight over the custody of the environment and the guardians’ fit to maintain its guardianship of these natural entities!
Paris, January 12, 2023
Zeejay