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Sep 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 NatureJul 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 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 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 NatureOct 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 NatureOct 8, 2021
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 NatureSep 10, 2021
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.
Read More | Blogs, Community Wires, Corporate 'Rights', Extraction & Pollution, News, Rights of NatureAug 24, 2021
The General Synod of the United Church of Christ has become the first mainline Protestant body to publicly proclaim that nature has rights.
Read More | Community Wires, News, News from the Grassroots, Rights of Nature, Success StoryAug 4, 2021
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 NatureJul 29, 2021
Earth Law Center and the Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature (GARN) Youth Hub led two sessions on “Youth and the Rights of Nature Movement: shifting the paradigm for all future generations” at the first IUCN Global Youth Summit April 7-9. As a result of the Rights of Nature sessions, a Declaration was drafted.… Read more »
Read More | Community Wires, Issues, News, Resource Links, Rights of NatureJul 10, 2021
Tune in to Legal Talk Networks Lawyer 2 Lawyer podcast featuring CELDF attorney, Lindsey Schromen-Wawrin. Listen as they discuss law and Nature and take a look at what rights we have to access Nature.
Read More | Issues, News, News from the Grassroots, Rights of NatureJun 3, 2021
Toledo residents in a lawsuit to enforce the Lake Erie Bill of Rights (LEBOR) filed a memorandum of opposition to the State of Ohio’s motion for summary judgment in their case. Last August, after the trial court granted the State of Ohio’s motion to dismiss, the plaintiffs presented oral arguments in the Ohio Sixth District Court of Appeals to enforce LEBOR.
Read More | Corporate Agriculture, Democratic Rights, News, Press Releases, Rights of NatureMay 31, 2021
CELDF is honored to work in solidarity with a new French-speaking network to advance the Rights of Nature in Europe. The network includes Loire Parliament, Valentransition, A.R.B.R.E.S., id-eau, Notre Affaire à Tous and others. “We are now working to grow the network with other similar organizations and communities active in the defense of the ecosystems… Read more »
Read More | Blogs, Community Rights, News, Rights of NatureMay 24, 2021
It will take many minds to birth a new legal and political paradigm. Engaging students and educators is critical. Toward that end, CELDF’s Chad Nicholson recently helped teach a short Rights of Nature seminar. Markie Miller presented at the Public Interest Environmental Law Conference and at the University of Toledo. Lindsey Schromen-Wawrin is heading up… Read more »
Read More | Blogs, Community Rights, News, Rights of NatureMay 22, 2021
Christopher Stone, the environmental scholar who championed fundamental rights of nature died at 83 on May 14, 2021. Stone was a legal scholar who argued in 1972 that trees, rivers, oceans and Nature itself possess fundamental legal rights, an argument that entered the bedrock of the modern environmental movement.
Read More | News, News from the Grassroots, Rights of NatureMar 3, 2021
Following international support for the Lake Erie Bill of Rights, CELDF is honored to work in solidarity with a new French-speaking network to advance Rights of Nature in Europe.
Read More | News, Press Releases, Rights of NatureFeb 21, 2021
CELDF officially endorsed a proposal for a Universal Declaration of the Rights of Wetlands, organized by lawyers and scientists with the Society of Wetland Scientists’ Rights of Wetlands and Climate Change and Wetlands initiatives. The group is planning to share the Declaration with the 171 signatory countries of the Convention on Wetlands (Ramsar Convention), and inviting them to work with others to move toward a framework that ensures the rights of wetlands are understood, respected, and upheld.
Read More | Issues, Press Releases, Rights of NatureFeb 15, 2021
In 2019, Nottingham residents passed a Freedom from Chemical Trespass Ordinance securing the rights of ecosystems and of townspeople to a “climate system capable of sustaining human societies.” Now New Hampshire courts have sided with corporations who infringe on those rights, revealing a pattern of bias embedded within the New Hampshire judiciary.
Read More | News, Press Releases, Rights of NatureFeb 6, 2021
Rights of Nature Panel Discussion 1:00 PM -2:30 pm EST It is neither acceptable nor is it necessary to poison the environment to engage in commerce. In fact, it is the antithesis of a sustainable, resilient, and responsible economy. But to stop harmful unsustainable developments like Jordan Cove and Pacific Connector Gas Pipeline, determined environmental… Read more »
Read More | Events, Rights of NatureFeb 2, 2021
Tribal nations, community and environmental groups in Minnesota have fought to stop the Line 3 Enbridge pipeline in Northern Minnesota. The pipeline violates several treaties with the Ojibwe people that establish their right to hunt, fish, and gather along the proposed route. The pipeline would cross 200 bodies of water, including the Mississippi River twice.
Read More | Corporate 'Rights', Extraction & Pollution, Issues, Rights of NatureJan 8, 2021
In 2020, members of the Pennsylvania Community Rights Network engaged in a statewide support campaign for a state constitutional amendment to place the rights of people over the interests of private corporations – empowering communities to heighten state protections for civil, human and ecosystem rights.
Read More | Blogs, Corporate 'Rights', Democratic Rights, Extraction & Pollution, News, Rights of NatureJan 5, 2021
Join us Tuesday 12 January, at 12:30 p.m EST for the third episode of this conference series, entitled “Nature rights: an extension of Human rights?”.
Read More | Community Wires, Events, News from the Grassroots, Resources, Rights of NatureDec 26, 2020
Virginia joins the growing network of state Community Rights Networks.
Read More | Blogs, Community Rights, News, Rights of NatureDec 21, 2020
A group of authors organized through the Society of Wetland Scientists have developed a proposal for a Universal Declaration of the Rights of Wetlands. CELDF is excited to endorse the efforts as a step toward recognizing and enforcing the rights of wetlands.
Read More | News, Press Releases & Blogs, Rights of NatureDec 15, 2020
Gas company PGE sues Grant Township over democratically enacted law. The PA Department of Environmental Protection also sued Grant in 2017, making this filing the third lawsuit against the Township (pop. 700) for trying to protect its drinking water.
Read More | Chemical Trespass, Community Rights, Corporate 'Rights', Democratic Rights, Extraction & Pollution, Issues, Press Releases & Blogs, Rights of NatureDec 11, 2020
Over the past five years, organizers in seven Ohio communities (three cities, four counties) have qualified ballot measures to recognize enforceable rights of ecosystems and human rights to water. All take the historic and bold step of elevating these basic rights above the legal privileges currently enjoyed by private corporations in the United States.
Read More | Community Rights, Corporate 'Rights', Corporate Agriculture, Extraction & Pollution, Issues, News, News from the Grassroots, Rights of NatureDec 6, 2020
Corporate and State opposition come to light as Rights of Nature organizing and lawmaking gain momentum.
Read More | News, Press Releases, Press Releases & Blogs, Rights of NatureDec 4, 2020
A bill was just proposed in Missouri to ban Rights of Nature litigation, the American Petroleum Institute just filed a brief to oppose local Rights of Nature laws, as the Democratic Party shows interest in the concept.
Read More | News from the Grassroots, Rights of NatureNov 4, 2020
The Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF) has prepared the following statement in response to the passage of the Wekiva River and Econlockhatchee River Bill of Rights.
Read More | Blogs, News, Rights of NatureOct 21, 2020
Lisa Burroughs for Ashtabula County Water Watch interviews CELDF’s Tish O’Dell on the Rights of Nature Movement in an October 2020 edition of North Coast Voice Magazine.
Read More | Community Rights, Community Wires, Issues, News from the Grassroots, Rights of NatureOct 6, 2020
From Bolivia to New Zealand, rivers and ecosystems in at least 14 countries have won the legal right to exist and flourish, as a new way of safeguarding nature gains steam. This new legal route to protect the planet – overriding the long-held human right to harm – bring fresh arguments to court, rally communities and shift local politics.
Read More | Issues, News from the Grassroots, Rights of NatureJul 20, 2020
Canadian honors student, Camylle Lanteigne, unpacks the connection between anticapitalism and ecocentrism in the Rights of Nature Movement. Her research focuses on CELDF’s philosophy as a framework for her arguments.
Read More | Community Wires, Corporate 'Rights', Democratic Rights, Rights of NatureJul 8, 2020
Ben Price discusses Rights of Nature and how the concepts of preemption, claimed corporate rights, and property rights challenge local democracy and ecosystem rights.
Read More | Community Rights, Corporate 'Rights', Rights of NatureApr 6, 2020
In this interview, Kai speaks on the current state of community rights, gives an explanation of the events taking place in Grant Township, and talks about how we must take this time during Covid-19 to progress forward in the movement.
Read More | Community Wires, News from the Grassroots, Rights of Nature