News From the Community Rights Movement - Page 6 of 30

Oct 6, 2020

CENSORING THE BALLOT: Civil Rights Appeal Filed to Defend Rights of Nature and Local Democracy in Ohio

Ohioans are taking a stand against evasive and oppressive tactics used by the State to suppress local ballot measures and stifle democracy. Plaintiffs from seven counties have filed an appeal to the Sixth Circuit in a federal civil rights case against the State of Ohio.

Read More | Press Releases, Press Releases & Blogs

Oct 6, 2020

Reuters: ‘Dramatic’ global rise in laws defending rights of nature

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 Nature

Oct 5, 2020

Oregon Community Rights Organizer Featured in New Documentary ‘THE PEOPLE vs. AGENT ORANGE’

A new documentary, “THE PEOPLE vs. AGENT ORANGE”, follows the primary component of the notorious chemical Agent Orange. The film follows resistance in the United States, France, and Vietnam, and features Carol Van Strum, an active participant in Community Rights and Rights of Nature organizing in Oregon. Join the premiere virtually for Oregon audiences at the Eugene Environmental Film Festival, October 2-11. It will be available on PBS in April 2021.

Read More | Community Wires, Press Releases & Blogs

Oct 2, 2020

BREAKING: Court Breathes New Life into Lake Erie Bill of Rights Legal Fight

Residents of Toledo, Ohio win appeal in pro se case against the State of Ohio. Lake Erie Bill of Rights lives to fight another day.

Read More | Press Releases & Blogs

Sep 28, 2020

Blog: Change History

The collective effort to dismantle oppressive and racist systems relies on decentralizing power. Only when we understand the importance of community control can we envision fair and just systems we must build.

Read More | Blogs, Press Releases & Blogs

Sep 24, 2020

Press Release: Grant Township Moves to Dismiss PA DEP Lawsuit

Despite recognizing the Grant Townships local law to ban injection wells the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection continues to sue the township. CELDF files motion to dismiss on behalf of the community.

Read More | Press Releases, Press Releases & Blogs

Sep 17, 2020

Virtual Democracy School in Colorado

Register today for this virtual Democracy School in the Colorado area!

Module 3: Nature’s Rebellion Against the Corporate State

Webinar: Webinar: Nature’s Rebellion Against the Corporate State! Register for Module Three- Decolonizing Nature – A Movement’s Voice in the Rebellion. Sign up for the final module in this three part webinar focused on Lake Erie and Rights of Nature.

Read More | Community Wires

Sep 6, 2020

Earth Defenders Warn Against Democrats Undermining ‘Rights of Nature’ Movement With Watered-Down Approach

Rights of Nature advocates caution against handing over Rights of Nature oversight to the Democratic Party.

Sep 4, 2020

Democratic Party Must Not Water Down Rights of Nature

Some leaders within the growing Rights of Nature movement in the United States have offered perspective and the Democratic Party’s actions

Read More | News, Press Releases & Blogs

Sep 3, 2020

Financial Reprisal for Enacting Lake Erie Bill of Rights? Corporate Law Firm Charging Toledoans $207,500

The international corporate law firm Vorys, Sater, Seymour and Pease LLP is seeking $207,500 in attorney fees from the City of Toledo for a charter amendment approved by voters.

Read More | News, Press Releases

Sep 3, 2020

Module 2: Nature’s Rebellion Against the Corporate State

Webinar: Webinar: Nature’s Rebellion Against the Corporate State! Register for Module Two- A Lakes Voice in the Rebellion. Sign up for the second module in this three part webinar focused on Lake Erie and Rights of Nature.

Read More | Community Wires

Aug 27, 2020

Webinar: Nature’s Rebellion Against the Corporate State

Webinar: Webinar: Nature’s Rebellion Against the Corporate State! Register for Module One – A Community’s Voice in the Rebellion. Sign up for the first module in this three part webinar focused on Lake Erie and Rights of Nature.

Read More | Community Wires

Aug 27, 2020

COMING SOON: World Premiere of ‘Invisible Hand’

From Executive Producer Mark Ruffalo comes the world’s first documentary film on the Rights of Nature Movement. Attend the virtual world premiere followed by a panel discussion around the Rights of Nature Movement.

Read More | Community Wires, News from the Grassroots

Aug 26, 2020

New Hampshire Supreme Court Gives Group Chance to Defend Right to a Healthy Climate Law from Corporate Lawsuit

While local electeds refused to defend Nottingham’s Healthy Climate Law, the New Hampshire Supreme Court heard the people’s voice. Now residents are able to defend their rights and this historic law while the corporation cries discrimination.

Read More | Press Releases, Press Releases & Blogs

Aug 19, 2020

100 Years Later: Reflections on the 19th Amendment

One hundred years ago, the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified, purporting to grant women the right to vote in the United States. In reality, this right applied only to white women; explicitly racist laws during and beyond the Jim Crow era categorically prohibited Black people from voting, and kept Indigenous and many Asian, Middle Eastern, and Latinx people from obtaining citizenship.

Rights of Nature with United Church of Christ Pastor

The UCC hosts CELDFs Tish O’Dell for a Rights of Nature presentation. Watch the full webinar here!

Press Release: Toledo Residents Experiment With Civilian Rights of Nature Enforcement

Toledo, Ohio residents give oral arguments in Lake Erie Bill of Rights pro se lawsuit to advances one avenue for participatory Rights of Nature enforcement.

Read More | Press Releases & Blogs

Aug 12, 2020

Defending the Rights of Lake Erie

Read the pro se argument defending the Lake Erie Bill of Rights presented by Toledo resident, Mike Ferner, on behalf of Lake Erie and the Toledoans who passed the law.

Read More | Community Wires

Aug 9, 2020

WANTED: Local Officials Willing to Fight the Corporate State to Protect People and the Environment During a Pandemic

The system is constructed to disempower communities, to the detriment of people and the planet. That is why we need to fight back and why we need local elected officials with courage to fight with us… not against us! A guest blog by Ohio organizer Tish O’Dell.

Read More | Press Releases & Blogs

Aug 1, 2020

Guest Blog: The Prison-Industrial Complex & Immigration Detention

The United State’s system of racist mass incarceration serves to control the political wishes of the American people. The immigration detention and deportation pipeline denies political rights to people who live in the country, and expels them from the collective political community.

Read More | Press Releases & Blogs

Jul 20, 2020

THESIS: Anticapitalism and Environmentalism in the American Rights of Nature Movement

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.

Jul 14, 2020

Virginia Network Launched to Challenge Corporatism and Dillon’s Rule, Advance Rights of Nature

The Network has been initiated by residents who worked to protect Buckingham County, Virginia from a proposed large-scale fracked gas compressor station for the now-defeated Atlantic Coast Pipeline.

Read More | Community Wires, Press Releases & Blogs

Jul 8, 2020

Staying Home with Josh Fox: Preemption and Property Rights

Ben Price discusses Rights of Nature and how the concepts of preemption, claimed corporate rights, and property rights challenge local democracy and ecosystem rights.

Jul 7, 2020

Common Dreams: Corporations Are Suing Cities Across the USA

A new Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund report details a standard operating procedure of how corporate interests, and the politicians who serve them, retain power.

Read More | Corporate 'Rights', Resource Links

Jun 29, 2020

Thom Hartmann Program: State Law Benefits Corporations Against You – You Lose

Chad Nicholson joins Thom Hartmann to discuss how the 1% are effectively, suing the 99% for their own benefit, citing the findings of our June 2020 Report.

Read More | Corporate 'Rights', News from the Grassroots

Jun 23, 2020

A Guide to Protesting and How to Support the Black Lives Matter Movement

A quick guide on how to participate in ongoing BLM protests and support the Movement in an effective way.

Lawsuit: Columbus, OH Must Take Action to Preserve Direct Democracy During the Pandemic

Press Release: Petitioners in Columbus file a lawsuit against the state of Ohio for unconstitutional limits on signature gathering during the COVID-19 pandemic in Columbus. The Columbus city charter imposes a one year time limit on signature gathering.

Read More | News, Press Releases

Jun 11, 2020

Webinar: Expanding Rights-Based Organizing During a Crisis

A live Q&A with CELDF organizers on Expanding Rights-Based Organizing During a Crisis.

Corporate Actors Challenged in Lincoln County, OR: Ecosystem, Petitioners Defend Ordinance

Press Release: Petitioners in Lincoln County, OR filed a detailed appeal to a court decision that overturned a local law banning aerially sprayed pesticides as a violation of people’s right to clean air, water, and soil and natural ecosystems’ rights. The Siletz River ecosystem was denied intervention in the case.

Read More | News, Press Releases

Jun 9, 2020

Guest Blog: Time for a Universal Declaration on the Rights of Nature

Pella Thiel, Rights of Nature Sweden, calls for meaningful changes to our relationship with nature.

New Hampshire Supreme Court: Allow People to Defend Against Corporate Lawsuits

Nottingham, New Hampshire residents appeal Supreme Court to defend their Freedom from Chemical Trespass Ordinance. Adopted in 2019, this ordinance secures the right to a climate system capable of sustaining human societies, bans all corporate activities that infringe that right, and grants residents the right to defend the law in court.

Read More | Community Wires, News, Press Releases

Jun 9, 2020

CELDF REPORT: Corporations Are Suing Cities Across the USA

A new Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund report details a standard operating procedure of how corporate interests, and the politicians who serve them, retain power.

Read More | Blogs, News, Publications, Resources

Jun 2, 2020

Stand With George Floyd: Life > Property

When violent police forces rooted in white supremacy defend property rather than human beings, then property destruction becomes a collective act of self-defense. CELDF stands in solidarity with protesters outraged by racial injustice and violence. #BlackLivesMatter

Read More | Blogs, Defunding Violence, News

Jun 1, 2020

Press Release: Columbus Protecting Democracy During a Pandemic

Communities across the country are watching as their rights are violated in the name of Covid. Now more than ever we see people rising up to demand democracy.

Read More | News, Press Releases

May 22, 2020

GUEST BLOG: Making Corporate America Safe for Democracy

A critical look at labor equity in America is long overdue. The relationship between empoyer and employee should not be that of master and servant -corporations have created should employ freemen and freewomen.

A Closer Look: Exploring the Rights of Nature on June 3

A Live Q&A Session with CELDF organizers taking a Closer Look at the Rights of Nature.

Common Dreams: Abolish Earth Day

For 50 years, environmentalists have celebrated the illusion that the law is on their side. Earth Day’s laws have systematically failed to guard against mass species die-offs, the climate crisis, deadly air pollution, the corporatization of freshwater, and the largest loss of biodiversity in human history.

Read More | Community Wires, News from the Grassroots

Apr 20, 2020

50 Years of Earth Day – What Are We Celebrating?

This year CELDF will be hosting an online Q&A with organizers who have been engaging communities across the country in paradigm-shifting work for decades.

Read More | Community Wires, Events, News from the Grassroots

Apr 13, 2020

Podcast Interview: Grant Township Update on Political Misfits

Pennsylvania organizer, Chad Nicholson, discusses the Rights of Nature victory in Grant Township despite the ongoing rollback of environmental protections across the country.

Read More | News from the Grassroots, Resource Links

Apr 9, 2020

Rights of Nature Interview on KB00 Radio!

Pacific Northwest organizer, Kai Huschke, details how COVID-19 has opens timely conversation about the Rights of Nature as a legal framework for protecting Nature.

Apr 6, 2020

People Power in a Time of Pandemic

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.

Apr 2, 2020

Rolling Stone: Nature Scores a Big Win Against Fracking in a Small Pennsylvania Town

The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) revoked a permit for a toxic frack waste injection well in Grant Township. The DEP cited the Township’s Home Rule Charter, which includes a “Community Bill of Rights,” in their decision. Through the Charter that residents adopted in 2015, they banned injections wells as a violation of the rights of the community and the ecosystems that sustain them. CELDF assisted in drafting and defending the law.

Mar 31, 2020

Host a Democracy School!

Corporate America is on Offense, Local Communities Can Be Too

Government allies and corporate interests are treating the global pandemic as a business opportunity. Communities enduring this crisis are taking bold and necessary actions to exercise their powers of self-governance where governments are not functioning in the way people want or need.

Read More | News, News from the Grassroots

Mar 25, 2020

Breaking: Grant Township Forces Pennsylvania to Revoke Injection Well Permit

PRESS RELEASE: Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection enforces local Rights of Nature law. Allows Grant Township to protect vital waterways in revoking permit for dangerous frack waste injection well.

Breaking: Rights of Nature Law Forces Pennsylvania to Revoke Industry Permit

PRESS RELEASE: Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection enforces local Rights of Nature law. Allows Grant Township to protect vital waterways in revoking permit for dangerous frack waste injection well.

Read More | News, Press Releases

Mar 21, 2020

Dear Mike DeWine: A Letter on Ohioan’s Constitutional Rights and Public Health

Ohio Organizer Tish O’Dell responds to Gov. Mike DeWine’s concerns for public health and constitutional rights during the COVID-19 crisis. Let’s hope he upholds his own words when it’s time to recover and rebuild.

Mar 18, 2020

Social Distancing for Community Organizers

In the battle against Covid-19, many of us find ourselves self-quarantined and working remotely. But alas, the work must go on. We’ve organized some tools to help you keep organizing in your community.

Community Stories: Claiming the Law

Bryan Twitchell shares a guest blog about the Wet’suwet’en First Nation’s ongoing resistance to the Coastal GasLink pipeline in British Columbia, Canada.

Read More | Blogs, Community Wires, News

Announcing CELDF's Proposed Rights of Nature Principles

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

Book: ‘Death by Democracy’

CENSORING THE BALLOT: Civil Rights Appeal Filed to Defend Rights of Nature and Local Democracy in Ohio

Reuters: ‘Dramatic’ global rise in laws defending rights of nature

Oregon Community Rights Organizer Featured in New Documentary ‘THE PEOPLE vs. AGENT ORANGE’

BREAKING: Court Breathes New Life into Lake Erie Bill of Rights Legal Fight

Blog: Change History

Press Release: Grant Township Moves to Dismiss PA DEP Lawsuit

Virtual Democracy School in Colorado

Module 3: Nature’s Rebellion Against the Corporate State

Earth Defenders Warn Against Democrats Undermining ‘Rights of Nature’ Movement With Watered-Down Approach

Democratic Party Must Not Water Down Rights of Nature

Financial Reprisal for Enacting Lake Erie Bill of Rights? Corporate Law Firm Charging Toledoans $207,500

Module 2: Nature’s Rebellion Against the Corporate State

Webinar: Nature’s Rebellion Against the Corporate State

COMING SOON: World Premiere of ‘Invisible Hand’

New Hampshire Supreme Court Gives Group Chance to Defend Right to a Healthy Climate Law from Corporate Lawsuit

100 Years Later: Reflections on the 19th Amendment

Rights of Nature with United Church of Christ Pastor

Press Release: Toledo Residents Experiment With Civilian Rights of Nature Enforcement

Defending the Rights of Lake Erie

WANTED: Local Officials Willing to Fight the Corporate State to Protect People and the Environment During a Pandemic

Guest Blog: The Prison-Industrial Complex & Immigration Detention

THESIS: Anticapitalism and Environmentalism in the American Rights of Nature Movement

Virginia Network Launched to Challenge Corporatism and Dillon’s Rule, Advance Rights of Nature

Staying Home with Josh Fox: Preemption and Property Rights

Common Dreams: Corporations Are Suing Cities Across the USA

Thom Hartmann Program: State Law Benefits Corporations Against You – You Lose

A Guide to Protesting and How to Support the Black Lives Matter Movement

Lawsuit: Columbus, OH Must Take Action to Preserve Direct Democracy During the Pandemic

Webinar: Expanding Rights-Based Organizing During a Crisis

Corporate Actors Challenged in Lincoln County, OR: Ecosystem, Petitioners Defend Ordinance

Guest Blog: Time for a Universal Declaration on the Rights of Nature

New Hampshire Supreme Court: Allow People to Defend Against Corporate Lawsuits

CELDF REPORT: Corporations Are Suing Cities Across the USA

Stand With George Floyd: Life > Property

Press Release: Columbus Protecting Democracy During a Pandemic

GUEST BLOG: Making Corporate America Safe for Democracy

A Closer Look: Exploring the Rights of Nature on June 3

Common Dreams: Abolish Earth Day

50 Years of Earth Day – What Are We Celebrating?

Podcast Interview: Grant Township Update on Political Misfits

Rights of Nature Interview on KB00 Radio!

People Power in a Time of Pandemic

Rolling Stone: Nature Scores a Big Win Against Fracking in a Small Pennsylvania Town

Host a Democracy School!

Corporate America is on Offense, Local Communities Can Be Too

Breaking: Grant Township Forces Pennsylvania to Revoke Injection Well Permit

Breaking: Rights of Nature Law Forces Pennsylvania to Revoke Industry Permit

Dear Mike DeWine: A Letter on Ohioan’s Constitutional Rights and Public Health

Social Distancing for Community Organizers

Community Stories: Claiming the Law

Support just, fair, and sustainable communities