Human rights and the rights of nature: friends or foes?

Gilbert, Jeremie (2024) Human rights and the rights of nature: friends or foes? Fordham International Law Journal, 47 (4), 447-484.

Record type: Article

Abstract

This article explores the connections between human rights and the rights of nature. Rights of nature are emerging as a global movement to re-think and move away from dominant anthropocentric approaches to law. As it is based on the idea that nature has inherent rights, rights of nature are often labelled to be the “human rights of nature”. However, this association with human rights, which are by nature is anthropocentric, is also paradoxical. This article argues that despite the anthropocentric nature of human rights, there could some strong alignments notably on issues concerning the universalism, interdependence, and indivisibility of rights. One interest in linking two movements is that human rights law is enriched by few centuries of legal developments, a diverse jurisprudence, and abundant campaigning and advocacy tools. With rights of nature being much ‘younger’ there might be lessons to be learned from the ‘older’ human rights movement. The argument put forward is that despite some potential clashes between human rights and the rights of nature, there are some legal principles that have been developed under international human rights law that could serve to alleviate these clashes, as well as to serve as a catalyst to support future rights of nature advocacy.

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