Issues Archives

Nov 17, 2022

Press Release: Back to the Future — Ohioans Still Poisoned After All These Years

“The spreading of toxic and radioactive well waste brine on Ohio roads and other surfaces threatens all Ohioans,” stated FaCT Brine Education Committee Chair, Ron Prosek. “You could be living or traveling anywhere in Ohio and potentially be exposed to this dangerous material. This is one of the most reckless practices that the State of Ohio has ever allowed.”

Nov 16, 2022

Sneak Peek! — End of Year Newsletter 2022: We are Nature

Human and ecosystem viability come when we figure out how to orient our culture to be connected to all four parts: Living from, with, in, and as Nature.

Join the OHCRN: Virtual film screening and discussion of “The Seeds of Vandana Shiva”

View the film on your own or with others (organize a viewing party!) from Friday November 18 to Sunday November 20. The OHCRN will host a Zoom webinar discussion on Sunday November 20 at 2:00 pm ET. The panel will include the filmmaker, Jim Becket.

Read More | Corporate Agriculture, Events, In The News

Nov 8, 2022

Wouldn’t You Say? – What Do We Mean by “Community Rights?”

Lakota advocate and water protector Debra White Plume (Wioweya Najin Wina), upon being introduced to the history of municipal subjugation in the United States during a Democracy School hosted by residents of the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, remarked that “municipalities are the white man’s reservations. The only difference is, we know we’re on reservations.”

Oct 31, 2022

Celebrating Victories in Europe and South America, the Rights of Nature Movement Plots Strategy in a Time of ‘Crises’

A global alliance formed in 2010 to advance an unorthodox legal theory that ecosystems and wild animals have rights, similar to humans. Now, says one leader, those ideas are “legitimate subjects of debate.”

Read More | In The News, Rights of Nature

Oct 28, 2022

CELDF Allies with the Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature in Siena, Italy

The Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature (GARN) gathered in Siena Italy at the 13th century monastery, Certosa di Pontignano, from October 15-18, and CELDF was there.

Read More | Events, In The News, Rights of Nature

Sep 29, 2022

The rights of nature movement cannot be stopped

By Pamela Haines September 27, 2022 From the Navajo Nation to a small town in Pennsylvania to Ecuador, then across the world, the idea of enshrining the rights of nature is only growing.

Read More | In The News, Rights of Nature

Sep 28, 2022

Happy Anniversary Rights of Pachamama Ecuador!

We at CELDF want to recognize and celebrate the 14-year anniversary of this historic date when the country of Ecuador codified Rights of Pachamama into their national Constitution.

Read More | In The News, News, Rights of Nature

Sep 23, 2022

Wouldn’t You Say? – What are the Rights of Nature?

The law locks up the man or woman, Who steals the goose from off the common, But leaves the greater villain loose, Who steals the common from off the goose

Read More | Blogs, Issues, News, Rights of Nature

Sep 15, 2022

Water Speaks to Ohio Department of Natural Resources

YES, the waters have a voice in this project….or at least they should.

Read More | Community Wires, In The News, News, Rights of Nature

Sep 15, 2022

Announcing CELDF’s Proposed Rights of Nature Principles

A new system of law based on respect for Nature and the obligations we share as collaborators with life-supporting ecosystems must be institutionalized, recognizing Nature as a unique legal entity and rights holder.

Read More | Issues, News, Resources, Rights of Nature

Sep 13, 2022

Chile’s Rejection

How could Chileans, after rising up in October 2019 to demand a new constitution, then voting by an overwhelming majority to initiate the constituent process, reject the proposed draft? Why would they align with right-wing forces seeking to preserve the Pinochet constitution? This astonishing result surely demands a multi-causal explanation.

Read More | Democratic Rights, In The News, Issues, News, Rights of Nature

Sep 12, 2022

Wouldn’t You Say? – Nature is What’s Real

You wouldn’t think, in a rational society, that anyone would have to be told this, but reality doesn’t care what anybody believes is true; it just is. And what isn’t, isn’t.

Read More | Blogs, In The News, Issues, News, Rights of Nature

Sep 7, 2022

It’s Inevitable – More to Come in Chile

Despite the claims of the corporate-minded, rejection of the new constitution by the voters of Chile is not a repute of what the new constitution contained but one that shows the desperation of the powerful elite to hold on to their planetary destroying levels of greed and the lengths they will go to deny the inevitable.

Read More | In The News, Rights of Nature

Sep 7, 2022

Unveiling Rights of Nature Artwork and Logo

We want to begin this next chapter of the Nature Leads Series by unveiling CELF’s beautiful new Rights of Nature artwork and logo designed by two talented artists and organizers from the St. Lawrence River / Kaniatarowanenneh Watershed, Haudenosaunee Territory, in what is known as the New York State.

Why CELDF will be watching more than sports this Sunday

As Chilean voters are poised to go to the polls this coming Sunday, September 4, to hopefully become the second country in the world to include recognition of the Rights of Nature (RON) in their national constitution, it is obvious just by reading a few headlines in any given week that more countries need to embrace and follow Chile’s lead.

Read More | In The News, Rights of Nature

Aug 21, 2022

Wouldn’t You Say? – Municipal Maze

Refuse to be complacent. Refuse to be complicit. Refuse to be irrelevant.

Read More | Blogs, Community Rights, Democratic Rights, In The News, News

Aug 5, 2022

Wouldn’t You Say? – Community Self-Government

Do you know what’s not mentioned in the U.S. Constitution? For one thing, government by the people.

Jul 19, 2022

Wouldn’t You Say? – Property

The Right to Property is Inalienable, Right?
Some rights are defined as inalienable, meaning that they can’t be taken away from you. Heck, you can’t even sell them, trade them, or give them away.

Jul 8, 2022

“Putting the rights of nature on the map. A quantitative analysis of rights of nature initiatives across the world.”

The Rights of Nature (RoN) promote a new understanding of the human
environment, where natural entities are conceived as subjects with intrinsic value independent of human interests. The implementation of this idea
gained momentum in the United States in 2006. One decade and a half later, the idea has spread all over the world.

Read More | News, Resources, Rights of Nature

Jul 6, 2022

Truthout: Nature Isn’t a “Vault” Full of Material Value. It Is a Treasure to Be Valued.

CELDF’s Ben Price wrote this article, featured in Truthout, about a mining corporation’s scam plan, pushed as an environmentally friendly investment opportunity.

Read More | In The News, News, Rights of Nature

Jul 5, 2022

Available Now: English Translation & Webinar of the Landmark Decision in Ecuador to Protect Los Cedros Forest over Mining Profits

We at CELDF were excited to be able to read the full decision of the Constitutional Court of Ecuador upholding the rights of the Los Cedros Forest over a mining project and we are sharing that decision with you in both English and Spanish. We want to thank the Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature… Read more »

Read More | News, Resources, Rights of Nature

Jul 1, 2022

Wouldn’t You Say? – Personhood

The Right of Free Speech Includes the Right to Clean Air to Speak With Look, if corporate property can be called a legal person, and if that person has a right to speak freely, but no mouth, and if corporate-cozy judges can make us all pretend for real that spending money is the way corporate… Read more »

Jun 14, 2022

The Elephant in the Zoo(m): Should Non-Humans and Natural Resources be Considered “Persons” Under the Law?

NYWBA’s Animal Law and WBASNY’s Environmental Law Committees presents a webinar on June 20, 2022 at 6:00 – 7:30 PM (Eastern Time) On May 18, 2022, the New York Court of Appeals heard the habeus corpus petition involving “Happy the Elephant” and considered whether she is a person under the law. Recent legal efforts in… Read more »

What do we want? Clean Water! When do we want it? Yesterday!

Our communities deserve more than just the right to Clean Water; our entire ecosystem, our Mother Earth depends on us to end the poisoning. It seems to me we need to recognize the Rights of Nature, and make it illegal to poison Earth and her inhabitants.

May 4, 2022

A Court Hearing for Grant Township: Eight Years Later, and Still No Injection Well

As many are aware, CELDF has stood with the people and ecosystems of Grant Township (Indiana County, PA, population 700) in their courageous efforts to keep a frack waste injection well out of the community.

Apr 11, 2022

DAMAGES Podcast: The Backlash

Episode DescriptionIn 2019, after a decade-long campaign, voters in Toledo Ohio voted to approve the Lake Erie Bill of Rights, effectively giving the lake personhood. It drew an incredible amount of attention. This wasn’t San Francisco hippies or Brooklyn hipsters talking about rights of nature, this was middle-aged moms in the Rust Belt, and that… Read more »

Read More | Multimedia, News, Resources, Rights of Nature

Mar 22, 2022

OHCRN 2022 Empowering Community Film Festival: Santiago Rising

Filmed during the weeks after protests began, Santiago Rising meets social movements, protesters, and ordinary people in their struggle for equality and human rights. The film charts the build-up to the historic vote, in October 2020, that saw Chileans vote for a new constitution to replace the one imposed during the brutal Pinochet dictatorship. Santiago Rising emphasizes… Read more »

Read More | Events, In The News, Issues, News

Mar 22, 2022

Podcast with GrassRoot Ohio: Death by Democracy- Episode 2 – w/ Tish O’Dell

Carolyn Harding with Tish O’Dell, a powerful voice for justice in Ohio, the US, and Globally. Tish has been a Community Organizer for CELDF (Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund) since 2012 assisting residents to organize rights-based initiatives in their communities in order to help them “make real” the just and sustainable communities they envision for… Read more »

Mar 16, 2022

Lucrative Losses & Poisonous Profits Symposium: An Overview of the Domestic and Global Exploitation of Nature and the Way Forward

CELDF’s Tish O’Dell is speaking on Panel #4, “Contamination of Water.” This Panel will take place on Friday, March 25 from 11:40 AM – 12:45 PM.

Terry Lodge, activist attorney with CELDF, is speaking on Panel #2, “Contamination of Land.” This panel will take place on Thursday, March 24 from 11:50 AM – 12:55 PM

American University Washington College of Law’s Program on Environmental and Energy Law and Sustainable Development Law & Policy Brief, in association with the Animal Law Society, Energy Law & Policy Society, Environmental Law Society, and Native American Law Students Association are excited to host this year’s annual Symposium, “Lucrative Losses & Poisonous Profits: An Overview of the Domestic and Global Exploitation of Nature and the Way Forward” over Zoom from 10 AM – 1 PM on March 24 and 25, 2022. Over the course of four panels—activists, professors, legal and policy experts, climate scientists, and professors will discuss the international and domestic contamination and overuse of water and land from modern environmental law, indigenous, and rights of nature perspectives. The panelists will explore the devastating impacts of some of nature’s biggest threats, including pollution, deforestation, and industrial fishing.

Mar 15, 2022

LEBOR like bill in New York seeks Rights of Nature for Great Lakes

New York State Assemblyman Patrick Burke, a 37-year-old Democrat from the Buffalo area, has introduced legislation “that will create a Great Lakes Bill of Rights with the goal of securing legal rights for the entire ecosystem and giving people and nature a role in the decision-making process regarding current and future projects that impact the… Read more »

Read More | In The News, News, Rights of Nature

Mar 10, 2022

“New Normal” Needs a New Constitutional Amendment

“New Normal” Needs a New Constitutional Amendment discussion from the Public Interest Environmental Law Conference PIELC.

Mar 10, 2022

Andrea Bowers: Can the world mend in this body?

The Lake Erie Bill of Rights and CELDF are influencing Bower’s work on Rights of Nature.

Read More | In The News, Rights of Nature

Nov 3, 2021

COMMUNITY RIGHTS AT THE OREGON SUPREME COURT

Community Rights at the Oregon Supreme Court: Understanding the Impacts of Denying Direct Democracy

Read More | Chemical Trespass, Community Rights, Events

Nov 2, 2021

Shifting the Lens: Energy & Environment Series

Would recognizing Rights of Nature affect you, the community and possibly the planet? Instead of looking at nature as mere property and as resources, what if we shifted the lens and the law to recognizing nature as living and therefore entitled to rights to life, to flourish and thrive?

Legal Self Defense

Legal Self Defense understands that the U.S. Constitution guarantees neither fairness nor safety, but that de-escalation skills coupled with some targeted legal knowledge can improve your security during interactions with law enforcement.

Read More | Defunding Violence, Publications

Oct 9, 2021

BOOK FOREWORD: Empowering Municipal Sustainability

They say that knowledge is power, but it’s not true. Knowledge fuels our actions and our actions are power.

Read More | Community Rights, Democratic Rights, Rights of Nature

Oct 8, 2021

Book: The Politics of Rights of Nature

How Rights of Nature laws are transforming governance to address environmental crises through more ecologically sustainable approaches to development.

Read More | News, Publications, Rights of Nature

Oct 7, 2021

Columbus Free Press: Beware the Brine

Members of OHCRN have called on Ohio’s Attorney General, Dave Yost, to open an investigation into the violation of Ohio law and the criminal actions of state officials and industry who were and are well aware that this brine is highly radioactive, yet still approve and allow it to be spread in Ohio communities.

Read More | Chemical Trespass, In The News

Sep 23, 2021

Corporation Asks Nottingham, N.H. For Legal Fees After Suing Over Climate Ordinance

The Freedom From Chemical Trespass Rights-Based Ordinance asserted residents’ rights to a healthy climate and banned corporate activities that would interfere with those rights, punishable by a fine of up to $1,000 per day.

Sep 17, 2021

Newsletter: Ohio Update

Ohio communities over the past decade have worked hard to protect ecosystems and their communities from various harmful projects. They did the work of asserting democratic rights to alter and reform their government. They collected signatures, argued in court, battled in lopsided campaigns and even won a few only to have the courts overturn their… Read more »

Read More | Blogs, Chemical Trespass, Community Wires, News

Sep 13, 2021

Corporation Demands $40,281.50 From Town For Passing Climate Ordinance

As climate change brings suffering across the globe, in New Hampshire Judge Martin Honigberg has sided with a local corporate actor who seeks financial retribution against the Town of Nottingham for the popular adoption of an ordinance recognizing a right of townspeople to a “climate system capable of sustaining human societies.” On September 1, 2021 the sole corporate actor, Brent Tweed, of G&F Goods, LLC submitted a $40,281.50 bill to the court for attorney fees.

Read More | Community Rights, In The News, News, Press Releases

Sep 10, 2021

Newsletter: Asheville Climate Bill of Rights Begins Signature Gathering

A new ordinance seeks to place a Climate Bill of Rights on the 2022 ballot, which explicitly challenges North Carolina’s infamous state preemption scheme and privileges afforded private corporations.

Sep 9, 2021

Newsletter: Non-Linear Change

As we organize to make change while environmental and racial injustice run rampant, and as drought and a poisonous status quo threaten the conditions for life, identifying where to invest time and energy can be as complex as getting to know another human being. Nothing about forming relationships follows a straight line.

Read More | Blogs, Democratic Rights, News

Sep 8, 2021

Newsletter: Updates on Defunding Violence

The Defunding Violence Ordinance has been circulating in activist communities across the country. It continues to be a living document that both informs and is informed by grassroots efforts to defund and depower the institution of policing.

Read More | Blogs, Community Wires, Defunding Violence, News

Aug 29, 2021

Preemption Workshop

On Thursday, September 9 at 6:30 pm, please join us for a workshop by the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF) “Preemption as a Lethal Weapon: How Corporations and Government are Deliberately Destroying Communities and Nature”.

Conversation: United Church of Christ Becomes First Mainline Church Body to Declare Earth has Rights

The General Synod of the United Church of Christ has become the first mainline Protestant body to publicly proclaim that nature has rights.

Aug 10, 2021

International Agent Orange Day: Aug. 10

Efforts by both female protagonists in ‘The People vs. Agent Orange’ film have been suppressed since the award winning documentary was released.

Read More | Chemical Trespass, News, Press Releases

Aug 5, 2021

Abolitionist Legal Self Defense Webinar

Join us for a conversation to share legal self-defense best practices and to critique the role of police in stabilizing an oppressive status quo.

Rights of Nature Principles

CELDF has been involved in establishing legal Rights for Nature in Western law for over two decades, from the beginning of this movement’s contemporary phase. We recognize that institutionalizing the Rights of Nature requires a cultural paradigm shift that challenges and changes our legal, social, and moral behavior. For life on Earth to survive, and… Read more »

Read More | Issues, Resource Links, Rights of Nature

CELDF is seeking a Grant Writer | Job Opening

Guest Blog: Community Rights in Buffalo, NY

New Book: ‘Death by Democracy’

Message from the NCRN

Press Release: Back to the Future — Ohioans Still Poisoned After All These Years

Sneak Peek! — End of Year Newsletter 2022: We are Nature

Join the OHCRN: Virtual film screening and discussion of “The Seeds of Vandana Shiva”

Wouldn’t You Say? – What Do We Mean by “Community Rights?”

Celebrating Victories in Europe and South America, the Rights of Nature Movement Plots Strategy in a Time of ‘Crises’

CELDF Allies with the Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature in Siena, Italy

The rights of nature movement cannot be stopped

Happy Anniversary Rights of Pachamama Ecuador!

Wouldn’t You Say? – What are the Rights of Nature?

Water Speaks to Ohio Department of Natural Resources

Announcing CELDF’s Proposed Rights of Nature Principles

Chile’s Rejection

Wouldn’t You Say? – Nature is What’s Real

It’s Inevitable – More to Come in Chile

Unveiling Rights of Nature Artwork and Logo

Why CELDF will be watching more than sports this Sunday

Wouldn’t You Say? – Municipal Maze

Wouldn’t You Say? – Community Self-Government

Wouldn’t You Say? – Property

“Putting the rights of nature on the map. A quantitative analysis of rights of nature initiatives across the world.”

Truthout: Nature Isn’t a “Vault” Full of Material Value. It Is a Treasure to Be Valued.

Available Now: English Translation & Webinar of the Landmark Decision in Ecuador to Protect Los Cedros Forest over Mining Profits

Wouldn’t You Say? – Personhood

The Elephant in the Zoo(m): Should Non-Humans and Natural Resources be Considered “Persons” Under the Law?

What do we want? Clean Water! When do we want it? Yesterday!

A Court Hearing for Grant Township: Eight Years Later, and Still No Injection Well

DAMAGES Podcast: The Backlash

OHCRN 2022 Empowering Community Film Festival: Santiago Rising

Podcast with GrassRoot Ohio: Death by Democracy- Episode 2 – w/ Tish O’Dell

Lucrative Losses & Poisonous Profits Symposium: An Overview of the Domestic and Global Exploitation of Nature and the Way Forward

LEBOR like bill in New York seeks Rights of Nature for Great Lakes

“New Normal” Needs a New Constitutional Amendment

Andrea Bowers: Can the world mend in this body?

COMMUNITY RIGHTS AT THE OREGON SUPREME COURT

Shifting the Lens: Energy & Environment Series

Legal Self Defense

BOOK FOREWORD: Empowering Municipal Sustainability

Book: The Politics of Rights of Nature

Columbus Free Press: Beware the Brine

Corporation Asks Nottingham, N.H. For Legal Fees After Suing Over Climate Ordinance

Newsletter: Ohio Update

Corporation Demands $40,281.50 From Town For Passing Climate Ordinance

Newsletter: Asheville Climate Bill of Rights Begins Signature Gathering

Newsletter: Non-Linear Change

Newsletter: Updates on Defunding Violence

Preemption Workshop

Conversation: United Church of Christ Becomes First Mainline Church Body to Declare Earth has Rights

International Agent Orange Day: Aug. 10

Abolitionist Legal Self Defense Webinar

Rights of Nature Principles

Support just, fair, and sustainable communities