At the 250th anniversary of our nation’s founding, it is worth reflecting that our legal system has been periodically updated to keep abreast of our nation’s moral evolution. The abolition of slavery, universal suffrage, gender equality, LGBTQ+ rights, and environmental responsibility — all have led to constitutional amendments, legislation, and judicial interpretation. These changes are not always immediate but accumulate over decades as societal values shift.
With the natural environment under assault by the current administration, perhaps the time is ripe to consider granting legal rights to nature. The Rights of Nature (RoN) movement is a legal and philosophical shift that grants ecosystems, species, and natural communities legal rights to exist, flourish, regenerate, and be restored — akin to human rights.
The History of Granting Rights to Nature
Various indigenous communities have assigned rights to nature in their cultural traditions for thousands of years. However, the beginning of the modern RoN movement might be traced to 1972. That year, law professor Christopher Stone published “Should Trees Have Standing?” in the Southern California Law Review, proposing that natural objects like forests should have legal standing in the courts. Around the same time, Justice William O. Douglas’s dissent in Sierra Club v. Morton argued that advocates should be able to sue to protect certain ecosystems. And although not explicitly granting rights to nature, the 1972 Clean Water Act contains a provision enabling citizens to bring lawsuits against polluters of water bodies.
In 2006, the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund helped pass the first law in the world recognizing the RoN in Tamaqua Borough, Pennsylvania, banning toxic sewage sludge dumping as a violation of nature’s rights. Since then, around 50 communities have adopted RoN statutes, though enforcement remains limited.
An aligned but less ambitious movement than granting rights to nature is the Green Amendment Movement. Its proponents promote state constitutional amendments to ensure that local and state governments honor the rights of residents to healthy environments via laws, decisions and actions. The movement’s goal is passage of enforceable environmental rights amendments in the Bill of Rights section of every constitution.
Consistent with cultural traditions, at least eight federally recognized tribes have enacted laws recognizing a specific rivers’ rights. In 2019, the Yurok Tribe recognized the Klamath River’s right to exist, flourish, and naturally evolve. And in 2020, the Nez Perce Tribal Council recognized the Snake River’s right to flow and regenerate. Last year, the Colorado River Tribes passed an ordinance granting rights to the Colorado River.
Internationally, the most significant developments include constitutional and legal personhood recognitions in Ecuador, New Zealand, and other countries; institutional maturation through global networks; Indigenous-led legal victories; and cross-cultural integration of spiritual and ecological values. These milestones have transformed RoN from a philosophical concept into a tangible legal and cultural force. For example, the Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature (GARN) is a worldwide network of scientists, attorneys, economists, Indigenous leaders, authors, spiritual leaders, business leaders, politicians, activists, and other stakeholders committed to transforming humanity’s relationship with the planet by recognizing nature as a rights-bearing entity.
The Case for Legal Rights of Nature in the United States
In the U.S., assigning legal RoN would have both practical and philosophical implications. Current environmental laws are often undermined by corporate influence and legal preemption. Recognizing nature’s rights could create legal tools to halt pollution, habitat destruction, and unsustainable development. Legal personhood for nature would likely make environmental law enforcement more proactive, inclusive, and potentially more effective by giving ecosystems a voice in court, shifting liability models, and closing loopholes in existing regulations. Success depends on clear guardianship structures, enforceable rights, and political will to implement them.
From a philosophical perspective, recognition that nature has legal rights may stimulate introspection about humanity’s relationship with the natural world. The movement shifts the legal mindset from an anthropocentric view (nature as resources for humans) to an ecocentric one (nature as having intrinsic value and agency).
The debate over granting rights to nature might be contrasted with policy debates over corporate personhood. The U.S. constitution says nothing about nature having rights, but it is equally silent about the rights of corporations. Corporations gained legal personhood over the years through a series of court decisions. The U.S. Supreme Court has interpreted the 14th Amendment and other provisions to treat corporations as “persons” for certain constitutional purposes. While this doctrine has evolved over more than a century, the Roberts Court greatly expanded it via the Citizens United decision. Then presidential candidate Mitt Romney famously reminded a heckler that “corporations are people.”
Critics argue, however, that personhood allows corporations undue influence in politics and undermines democratic equality. The main objections are that corporate personhood misrepresents the Constitution’s purpose, distorts democratic equality, and grants disproportionate political and legal power to entities that lack the moral and human qualities of individuals.
Granting legal rights to nature is not a panacea but can bolster other environmental protections. Critics caution that such laws may be conceptually flawed, legally impractical, and politically contentious. Especially in an era in which the sitting president views the natural world largely as a platform for development, however, our other-than-human kin and their ecosystems need a voice that can be clearly heard by our legal system.
Keith Kozloff is an environmental economist previously with the federal government.