Annotated Table of Contents Standing for Nature Legal Strategies for Environmental Justice Dana Zartner, Fabian Cardenas, and Mohammad Golam Sarwar
Introduction Standing for Nature explores the growing rights of Nature movement around the world, which has at its core a goal of not only providing better legal mechanisms to protect the environment, but also of creating a shift in human perceptions of the human-Nature relationship to one of interdependence and respect, rather than domination. In this introductory chapter, the basic idea of the rights of Nature is introduced, along with short summaries of the cases examined in later sections, before setting up the primary question this book address, which is: What makes for successful rights of Nature law? Countries such as Peru, Ecuador, India, Bangladesh, Uganda, Panama, and Sweden, along with local communities throughout the United States and elsewhere, have crafted laws recognizing the rights of Nature through a variety of legal mechanisms. Given this is a relatively new phenomenon and that some efforts have been more successful than others, this book provides advocates with helpful insights for developing rights of Nature in their own communities. Although more people recognize the need to address issues of environmental justice, there are still those who are resistant to new ideas. Each successful promulgation of rights of Nature laws opens more space for the idea that we need to change how humans think about nature, the human–nature relationship, and current legal and policy structures. This book highlights how the rights of Nature movement offer environmental advocates in the United States and around the world innovative legal mechanisms to do just that.
Chapter 1 - Understanding the “Rights” in Rights of Nature Chapter 1 addresses some of the foundational questions that must be considered when developing rights of Nature law. Across the world, common questions arise about this legal concept that get to the heart of how rights are recognized, internalized and enforced. Those