Report: Realising Rights of Nature: Understanding the Variety of Legal Instruments

We are proud to announce the release of a new research report, ‘Realising Rights of Nature: Understanding the Variety of Legal Instruments’, written by LFN Researcher Alex May. This report is part of LFN’s work to develop expert knowledge on Rights of Nature and provide accessible resources for campaigners.

This ground-breaking report maps out the variety of different legal instruments which have been developed globally in the pursuit of realising Rights of Nature. Classifying the legal developments has always been tricky, and the approach used in this report is to combine both the type of law (e.g legislative, local law or declaratory only) with the scope of the rights and subjecthood granted.

The diagram also allows for showing the interrelationships between different instruments and mapping out how the law has developed in a particular jurisdiction.

The report begins with an overview of Rights of Nature aimed at those not already familiar and then explains the diagram. The third section explains each type of legal instrument with analysis, written to be accessible to non-lawyers. The fourth section then explores the interrelations between different instruments and uses case studies to show how legal systems can develop in different ways – though for a full realisation of Rights of Nature, multiple elements of the legal system must be transformed.

Alex has a long-standing interest in Rights of Nature research, supports LFN’s work on Nature-Positive Corporate Governance, and is currently pursuing a PhD in legal theory at Birkbeck, University of London. On his motivations for writing the report, Alex had this to say:

"It can be quite confusing, especially for those without legal knowledge, to understand all the different types of Rights of Nature laws and initiatives that have emerged around the world. I initially developed this diagram to help explain to people new to the idea the differences between different legal implementations. My hope is that this classification and report is helpful to the wider movement as we consider different ways to transform our legal systems and realise Rights of Nature."

You can download and read the full report here: