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Jun 29, 2018
This July 4th, let’s take a second look at what the Revolutionaries aspired to, and what we live under today.
Read More | UncategorizedMay 24, 2018
Environmental and social justice attorney Terry Lodge receives the 2018 Johnsrud Unsung Heroes Award. Lodge partners with CELDF to advance and protect Community Rights for communities across Ohio.
Read More | Community Wires, Press Releases & Blogs, Success StoryApr 5, 2018
In the growing recognition of ecosystem rights around the world, today the Colombia Supreme Court of Justice ruled that the Amazon region in Colombia possesses rights.
Read More | Press Releases & Blogs, Success StoryMar 16, 2018
The New Hampshire legislature takes an historic vote on the first Community Rights state constitutional amendment considered by a state legislature.
Read More | Press Releases & Blogs, Success StoryFeb 25, 2018
CELDF’s Tish O’Dell shares discoveries of her own white privilege when fracking came into her community – and how Dr. Martin Luther King and Black Lives Matter inform her work with communities today
Read More | Press Releases & BlogsFeb 19, 2018
The people’s Community Rights state constitutional amendment moves ahead with the support of a New Hampshire legislative subcommittee.
Read More | Community Wires, Press Releases & Blogs, Success StoryFeb 1, 2018
Plymouth, NH, voters overwhelmingly adopt a rights-based ordinance banning unsustainable energy projects and protecting their right to a sustainable energy future. The measure bans the Northern Pass project.
Read More | Community Wires, Press Releases & Blogs, Success StoryJan 23, 2018
New Hampshire residents and the NHCRN advance a Community Rights state constitutional amendment to the legislative committee hearing.
Read More | Community Wires, Press Releases & Blogs, Success StoryDec 7, 2017
Nature isn’t protected in our constitution. And so ecosystems, including our national monuments, are protected – or not – at the whim of current powerbrokers.
Read More | Press Releases & BlogsDec 7, 2017
Two Community Rights state constitutional amendments advance in Ohio, meeting Ballot Board requirements for single subject. Residents are launching their signature gathering campaign.
Read More | Community Wires, News from the Grassroots, Success StoryDec 4, 2017
For three years, Ohio government and the oil and gas industry have tried to quash Community Rights. This year, communities have come back stronger than ever, and with a win in the Ohio Supreme Court.
Read More | Success StoryDec 4, 2017
What began over twenty years ago as an effort to help communities enforce the nation’s environmental laws, has now fully evolved into a resistance movement focused on driving rights for local self-determination and nature into the highest levels of law.
Read More | UncategorizedNov 20, 2017
A powerful exchange between a New Hampshire legislator and a New Hampshire resident on Community Rights.
Read More | Press Releases & BlogsNov 17, 2017
Today, residents take action to protect democratic and environmental rights in Ohio, submitting two state constitutional amendments to the Ohio Attorney General.
Read More | Community Wires, Press Releases & Blogs, Success StoryNov 14, 2017
The NH Community Rights Network and residents successfully introduce a rights-based state constitutional amendment to the NH legislature with Representative Ellen Read as a sponsor.
Read More | Press Releases & Blogs, Success StoryJul 24, 2017
The Siletz River watershed in Lincoln County, OR, files to intervene in a case to protect itself against aerially sprayed pesticides. The practice was banned by county residents in May.
Read More | Community Wires, Press Releases & BlogsJun 25, 2017
Youngstown, OH, residents advance two rights-based measures to protect their water and their elections. Community members are gathering signatures for the November ballot.
Read More | Community Wires, News from the GrassrootsMay 18, 2017
Grant Township, PA, is being sued by their own Dept of Environmental Protection to force in a fracking wastewater injection well. CELDF filed a countersuit on behalf of the Township, asserting the DEP is violating the rights of the community and the Charter.
Read More | Community Wires, Press Releases & BlogsMay 4, 2017
Reversing course from mainstream views of nature as property, Colombia’s Constitutional Court finds the Atrato River is a rights-bearing entity – a necessary step to protect life on earth.
Read More | Community Wires, Press Releases & Blogs, Success StoryDec 27, 2016
The Paris Agreement will not stop climate change – most experts agree on that. What will? Only we, in our communities, can achieve the changes necessary to protect our communities and the planet.
Read More | Press Releases & BlogsDec 20, 2016
There is a corporate state crack down on communities governing themselves and taking action to protect future generations. The crack down is evidence that these communities’ strategies are working, and striking at the power wielded against people and nature.
Read More | Community Wires, Press Releases & BlogsNov 8, 2016
The might of the oil and gas industry and its allies were out in force, outspending residents enormously in today’s election to defeat the people’s Community Bill of Rights banning fracking. While the measure was defeated, the people are not.
Read More | Community Wires, Press Releases & BlogsNov 8, 2016
Waterville, OH, residents make clear the Nexus pipeline and compressor station will not cut through their community, overwhelmingly adopting a Community Bill of Rights Charter Amendment banning fracking related activities.
Read More | Community Wires, Press Releases & Blogs, Success StorySep 13, 2016
CELDF is partnering with local groups and NGOs in India to advance the rights of the Ganges River through the National Ganga River Rights Act.
Read More | News from the GrassrootsAug 19, 2016
Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted demonstrates his loyalty to the oil and gas industry by trying to block citizen initiatives. The initiatives propose county charters that ban fracking activities. Residents are fighting back, appealing Husted’s decision to the Ohio Supreme Court.
Read More | Community Wires, Press Releases & BlogsAug 15, 2016
Undaunted by the courts, the state legislature, or the oil and gas industry, Ohioans understand the power to protect themselves is in We, the People, as they fight for their rights.
Read More | UncategorizedAug 11, 2016
Grant Township, PA, residents and the Little Mahoning Watershed secure wins in motions filed recently by CELDF. Residents are fighting for their rights against PGE as the company tries to force a frack wastewater injection well in the Township.
Read More | Community Wires, Press Releases & BlogsJun 30, 2016
Last summer, the corporate state led efforts to keep Ohioans from voting on fracking bans. Ohio communities are back in action, refusing to be deterred, and committed to protecting their communities. Five ballot measures are submitted this week for November.
Read More | Community Wires, Press Releases & Blogs, Success StoryJun 9, 2016
Breaking the Planet takes an unflinching look at climate change, the legal and governing structures accelerating our own destruction, and the radical action necessary to cease the sweeping and violent damage being done to the planet, and us.
Read More | Community Wires, News from the GrassrootsMay 11, 2016
Today residents in Meigs County and the City of Waterville, OH, launched their petition campaigns to place rights-based initiatives before voters this November. Residents are organizing to stop fracking projects and protect rights to clean air and water.
Read More | Community Wires, Press Releases & BlogsMay 2, 2016
CELDF is partnering with grassroots and statewide groups to confront the many barriers that are being erected by corporations and government to restrict our democratic rights, and our ability to protect people, workers, communities and the environment.
Read More |Apr 27, 2016
North Carolina’s HB2 is a new state law that preempts local laws that protect LGBT rights. This means that the state legislature deliberately and knowingly eliminated protections for the LGBT community in North Carolina. It’s time for communities to take action.
Read More | Community Wires, News from the GrassrootsMar 14, 2016
Five Ohio counties and cities launch Community Bills of Rights campaigns to protect themselves from fracking activities. Residents are aiming for the November 2016 ballot.
Read More | Community Wires, Press Releases & BlogsMar 9, 2016
Community Rights supporters in New Hampshire look to 2017 to bring forward their state constitutional amendment securing rights.
Read More | Community Wires, Press Releases & BlogsMar 8, 2016
The people of Barrington, NH, adopt a Community Bill of Rights, asserting their right to clean air, pure water, and local, community self-government. The rights-based ordinance bans corporate gravel extraction and water withdrawals as a violation of those rights.
Read More | Community Wires, Press Releases & Blogs, Success StoryFeb 28, 2016
In a move reflective of efforts by the corporate state to quash citizens’ initiatives across the U.S., the Washington Supreme Court recently denied Spokane residents the right to vote on their Community Bill of Rights Charter Amendment.
Read More | Community Wires, Press Releases & BlogsFeb 21, 2016
For the first time in the U.S., a state legislative committee held a public hearing on a Community Rights state constitutional amendment. Residents from across New Hampshire testified in support of the measure as they face an onslaught of harmful corporate projects in their communities.
Read More | Community Wires, Press Releases & BlogsDec 29, 2015
In the U.S., laws securing civil rights, worker rights, and environmental protections have been pinned not on Congress’s authority to protect people or nature, but on its authority to regulate commerce. The U.S. Constitution was written to protect property and commerce, rather than human and nature’s rights. The Community Rights Movement is working to change that.
Read More | Community WiresDec 11, 2015
New Hampshire’s Community Rights state constitutional amendment securing the right to local, community self-government for all Granite Staters, moves forward for the 2016 Legislative Session.
Read More | Community Wires, News from the GrassrootsNov 4, 2015
Youngstown, OH, community rights supporters came within 345 votes of adopting their rights-based charter amendment banning fracking, and are ready to press forward.
Read More | Community Wires, Press Releases & BlogsNov 4, 2015
The people of West Chester, PA, vote overwhelmingly to assert their community rights and ban fracking activities from their borough. They join dozens of other communities across the state – and the country – who are standing up for their rights.
Read More | Press Releases & Blogs, Success StoryOct 12, 2015
National Community Rights Network The National Community Rights Network (NCRN) launched in 2014, growing out of CELDF’s grassroots organizing, which has assisted communities to advance Community Rights at the local level for 20 years. Nearly 200 communities across the U.S. have adopted CELDF-drafted Community Bills of Rights, protecting community rights to clean air and water,… Read more »
Read More |Aug 31, 2015
Chapter I, from “Jefferson, Corporations and the Constitution” originally published in The Virginia Quarterly Review, 1936
Read More | Resource LinksAug 14, 2015
SPOKANE, WASHINGTON: Judge Salvatore Cozza from the Spokane County Superior denied a preliminary injunction brought by the Mayor of Spokane to block the vote of a Worker Bill of Rights initiative, which is on the November ballot.
Read More | Community Wires, News from the GrassrootsAug 12, 2015
Learn the latest news on Spokane, WA’s, Worker Bill of Rights, read Community Rights Paper #5 on Citizens United, and join us for the launching of the Ohio Community Rights Workshop.
Read More | News from the GrassrootsAug 11, 2015
This week, Highland Township, PA, Supervisors, with overwhelming community support, voted unanimously to defend their Community Bill of Rights banning frack wastewater injection wells rather than surrender their community’s rights. The vote was taken after Seneca Resources (Seneca) made good on a two year old threat to sue the Township to overturn the ordinance.
Read More | UncategorizedAug 4, 2015
What are Community Rights? Where did they come from? Why do we need them? In a series of Community Rights Papers, we will explore the roots of Community Rights in our history, and how they’ve emerged as rights movements – including our own American Revolution.
Read More |Jun 24, 2015
Trying to protect your community from any number of threats? Check out Common Sense, CELDF’s community rights organizing primer.
Read More | UncategorizedMar 7, 2015
Nov 18, 2014
Today, for the first time, an ecosystem in the United States filed a motion to intervene in a lawsuit to defend its own right to exist and flourish. The Little Mahoning Watershed and Grant Township, PA, residents come up against the Pennsylvania General Energy Corporation.
Read More | Community Wires, Press Releases & Blogs, Success Story