CELDF is seeking a Grant Writer | Job Opening
The person in this position will play an integral role in expanding…
Blogs, News, News from the Grassroots, Resources
Important Updates
The person in this position will play an integral role in expanding…
Blogs, News, News from the Grassroots, Resources
A new system of law based on respect for Nature and the…
Issues, News, Resources, Rights of Nature
Protecting Water and Life: Frontline Stories from Ohioans fighting corporate and state…
Publications
Mar 15, 2023
“Water Is Us” was moderated by ORCRN’s board member and CELDF organizer Kai Huschke. Joining him was: On February 22nd the ORCRN’s Webinar Wednesday meandered through a variety of water topics, from current conditions of water access and water quality to how the law sees water, to the growth of rights of nature to protect and preserve water, to… Read more »
Read More | Community Rights, Events, Extraction & Pollution, Multimedia, Resource Links, Rights of Nature, Water PrivitizationMar 10, 2023
Kai Huschke, with the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund, talks to us about the hierarchy of community rights, states rights, and corporate rights.
Read More | Community Rights, Corporate 'Rights', Democratic Rights, Events, Extraction & Pollution, Multimedia, Rights of NatureMar 3, 2023
We are used to extracting not only metallic ores and fossil fuels, but ourselves and our communities from the natural world, and yet we don’t notice the increasing distance placed between us and our natural habitat by the human-made environment.
Read More | Blogs, Community Rights, Rights of NatureFeb 28, 2023
Rights of Nature Panel Discussion: Tuesday, March 21, 2023 from 6:30pm – 8:30pm PST
Read More | Events, Rights of NatureFeb 20, 2023
The “Exist, Flourish, Evolve” art show will be held at The Cleveland Museum of Contemporary Art and will focus on Rights of Nature and the Great Lakes in particular.
Read More | Events, Rights of NatureFeb 16, 2023
March 3rd at 1:15pm to 2:45pm PST/4:15pm to 5:45pm EST. CELDF’s Kai Huschke will be facilitating this panel on “Protecting our Vital Watersheds – Transitioning to Rights of Nature” focused on giving entities in nature such as rivers and watersheds legal rights.
Read More | Events, Rights of NatureFeb 14, 2023
Using illustrator and writer Shaun Tan’s short story “Bears with Lawyers” as a touchstone, this discussion will interrogate the societal conception of rights (and rites) within our current legal system and beyond.
Read More | Events, Rights of NatureJan 19, 2023
At the risk of expediting the die-off of most life on the planet, including most humans, judges continue to turn a blind eye toward the rights of natural communities – where humans live in harmony with their environment – while giving full-throated support for legal rights vested in corporate property.
Read More | Blogs, Rights of NatureJan 16, 2023
The challenge: How to overcome the white dominance/Black subordination relationship. How to decolonize.
Read More | Blogs, Democratic RightsJan 5, 2023
We must think about our history- the Revolutionaries were proposing an alternative to being a colony of England, abolitionists were fighting for an alternative to slavery, the suffragists for an alternative to patriarchy and on and on.
Read More | Blogs, Democratic RightsDec 20, 2022
Let’s be generous and call the COP–15 agreement a plan for conserving 1% of Earth’s biodiversity. That means that negotiators agreed to sacrifice 99% of Earth’s remaining biodiversity on the altar of human consumption for profit.
Read More | Blogs, Chemical Trespass, Community Rights, Democratic Rights, News from the Grassroots, Rights of NatureDec 20, 2022
As we head into the new year, please join us in continuing to stand with Grant Township. And let’s not only support them with words or dollars, but also follow their lead and bravely build on their efforts in the communities where we live.
Read More | Chemical Trespass, Community Rights, Corporate 'Rights', Democratic Rights, Extraction & Pollution, Press Releases, Rights of NatureDec 10, 2022
Mangroves, according to the Ramsar definition, are considered wetlands – an area that CELDF is also helping to evolve coming out of the Declaration of the Rights of Wetlands.
Read More | Community Rights, Extraction & Pollution, News from the Grassroots, Rights of NatureNov 17, 2022
“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.”
Read More | Chemical Trespass, Community Wires, News from the Grassroots, Press ReleasesNov 16, 2022
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.
Read More | News, Rights of NatureNov 10, 2022
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, News from the GrassrootsNov 8, 2022
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.”
Read More | Blogs, Community Rights, Democratic Rights, News from the Grassroots, Rights of NatureOct 31, 2022
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 | News from the Grassroots, Rights of NatureOct 28, 2022
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, News from the Grassroots, Rights of NatureSep 29, 2022
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 | News from the Grassroots, Rights of NatureSep 28, 2022
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 | News, News from the Grassroots, Rights of NatureSep 23, 2022
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 NatureSep 15, 2022
YES, the waters have a voice in this project….or at least they should.
Read More | Community Wires, News, News from the Grassroots, Rights of NatureSep 15, 2022
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 NatureSep 13, 2022
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, Issues, News, News from the Grassroots, Rights of NatureSep 12, 2022
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, Issues, News, News from the Grassroots, Rights of NatureSep 7, 2022
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 | News from the Grassroots, Rights of NatureSep 7, 2022
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.
Read More | News, Rights of NatureSep 1, 2022
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 | News from the Grassroots, Rights of NatureAug 21, 2022
Refuse to be complacent. Refuse to be complicit. Refuse to be irrelevant.
Read More | Blogs, Community Rights, Democratic Rights, News, News from the GrassrootsAug 5, 2022
Do you know what’s not mentioned in the U.S. Constitution? For one thing, government by the people.
Read More | Blogs, Community Rights, Corporate 'Rights', Democratic Rights, News, News from the GrassrootsJul 19, 2022
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
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.
Jul 6, 2022
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 | News, News from the Grassroots, Rights of NatureJul 5, 2022
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 NatureJul 1, 2022
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 »
Read More | Blogs, Corporate 'Rights', Extraction & Pollution, News, News from the Grassroots, Rights of NatureJun 14, 2022
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 »
Read More | Events, Rights of NatureMay 19, 2022
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.
Read More | Chemical Trespass, Community Wires, Corporate Agriculture, Issues, Rights of NatureMay 4, 2022
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.
Read More | Chemical Trespass, Community Rights, Corporate 'Rights', Democratic Rights, Extraction & Pollution, Issues, News, Rights of NatureApr 11, 2022
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 NatureMar 22, 2022
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, Issues, News, News from the GrassrootsMar 22, 2022
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 »
Read More | Community Rights, Democratic Rights, Issues, News, News from the Grassroots, Publications, ResourcesMar 16, 2022
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.
Read More | Chemical Trespass, Corporate 'Rights', Events, Extraction & Pollution, News, Rights of Nature, Water PrivitizationMar 15, 2022
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 | News, News from the Grassroots, Rights of NatureMar 10, 2022
“New Normal” Needs a New Constitutional Amendment discussion from the Public Interest Environmental Law Conference PIELC.
Read More | Corporate 'Rights', Democratic Rights, Multimedia, News from the Grassroots, Rights of NatureMar 10, 2022
The Lake Erie Bill of Rights and CELDF are influencing Bower’s work on Rights of Nature.
Read More | News from the Grassroots, Rights of NatureNov 3, 2021
Community Rights at the Oregon Supreme Court: Understanding the Impacts of Denying Direct Democracy
Read More | Chemical Trespass, Community Rights, EventsNov 2, 2021
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?
Read More | Events, Rights of NatureNov 1, 2021
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, PublicationsOct 9, 2021
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