UK government can never accept idea nature has rights, delegate tells UN

Dismissal of concept already recognised in UN declarations described as shameful, contradictory and undemocratic

The UK government can never accept that nature or Mother Earth has rights, a British government official from the environment department has told the UN.

The dismissal of a concept that has already been recognised in UN declarations and is a fundamental belief of many Indigenous communities was described by critics as shameful, contradictory and undemocratic.

Britain’s rejection of rights for nature came during a debate in preliminary negotiations for the UN environment assembly in Nairobi on Wednesday, when government representatives were asked to consider a draft resolution by Bolivia on “living well in balance and harmony with Mother Earth and Mother Earth centric actions.” This included a passage on the rights of nature.

The US, the EU, Canada and the UK spoke against the resolution, saying they had not been given sufficient time to consider a complex issue that Bolivia had submitted at the last moment.

The British delegate from the Department for Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs (Defra) said the draft resolution failed to respect diversity of opinions about how to perceive and interact with nature. He added that he opposed the core principle of the resolution and appeared to rule out any possibility that the UK would ever be able to accept this different way of treating nature in courts of law.

“The UK’s firm position is that rights can only be held by legal entities with a legal personality. We do not accept that rights can be applied to nature or Mother Earth,” the delegate said. “While we recognise that others do, it is a fundamental principle for the UK and one from which we cannot deviate.”

Legal experts have been working on the rights of nature, which aims to strengthen protections for species and ecosystems that have been devastated by the prevailing market view of them as resources to be slaughtered or harvested.

A multiplicity of campaigns around the world have made progress in this area, which is often also associated with efforts to unify Indigenous knowledge, ethical thinking and environmental protection. The Center for Democratic and Environmental Rights has collated a list of the countries, regions and legal systems that have recognised rights for nature. Ecuador, Bolivia, Uganda, the US, Canada, Brazil, New Zealand, Mexico and Northern Ireland have some recognition of the rights of nature in their constitutions, national laws or local regulations.

Law scholars have noted that corporations and even ships are non-human entities that can have legal personhood imposed by law. The UN general assembly adopted resolutions recognising the rights of Mother Earth or nature at Rio+20 in 2012 and in the convention on biodiversity in 2022. Altogether, there have been 14 UN general assembly resolutions on this subject.

Agustín Grijalva, a former supreme court judge in Ecuador who issued a pioneering judgment on the rights of the Los Cedros forest, said the UK dismissal was disrespectful. “It is completely disrespectful to rule out in such terms the proposal of Bolivia and other countries of the UN system where it is supposed that government delegates work at least to hear, dialogue and debate what is the best for humanity and nature. This declaration is a shame for the UK,” he said.

César Rodríguez-Garavito, a Colombian legal scholar who leads the Earth Rights Advocacy Clinic at New York University, said the UK’s position was paradoxical at best and contradictory at worst. “It’s paradoxical because it recognises rights for non-human entities like corporations but denies them to non-human living beings. It’s contradictory because, while rhetorically acknowledging different cultures and Indigenous worldviews, it nevertheless imposes the western understanding of rights and law,” he said.

Peter Doran, a lecturer in environmental law at Queen’s University Belfast and a leading campaigner for the rights of nature to be included in Ireland’s constitution, said the “fundamentalist” British response in Nairobi was “threadbare in both logic and substance”. He said it reflected the position of European colonial powers who had “foisted the twin pillars of genocide and ecocide on Indigenous peoples around the world, using the force of arms to transform the earth into dead matter, valued only as feedstock for industry and commerce.”

A government spokesperson said: “While we of course recognise the importance of protecting and advancing nature, the UK position is that rights can only be held by legal entities, not nature or Mother Nature.

“As such, we raised concerns – alongside the US, Canada, and the EU – that the Resolution was not inclusive of the views held by other cultures and communities - who also share the ambition of advancing environmental goals.”

Cover photo: The British delegate appeared to rule out any possibility the UK would accept a different way of treating nature in courts of law. Pictured, the Lake District in Cumbria. Photograph: Michael Conrad/Shutterstock