The global Rights of Nature (RoN) movement, which seeks to confer enforceable rights on organisms and ecosystems, has become a political force, and governments are now codifying legal rights for nature in legislation. But policymakers and legal scholars are overlooking how assertions of vague rights held by a limitless class of non-humans could lead to repressive, anti-democratic outcomes. Many scholars view recognition of nature’s rights as an expansion of the boundaries of democracy, but a critical examination of RoN scholarship and advocacy shows that RoN principles are designed to check and constrain democratic institutions. Core tenets of the RoN movement are deeply antagonistic to democratic self-government and would damage representative institutions in ways that are not widely understood.

In this Article, I argue that the RoN vision for governance under a system of enforceable rights for all living things would have pernicious effects for democracy and human well-being if nature’s rights were implemented widely, as advocates intend. I do not suggest that the RoN movement currently poses a threat to democracy or that every piece of RoN legislation is harmful. Instead, I argue that the long-term governance upheaval sought by RoN proponents—assuming it could be achieved—is both politically and ecologically undesirable. The fulfillment of the RoN vision would undermine legislative autonomy, human rights, public input, and representation, with no assurance that nature would be protected any better.

Focusing on distortions to legislative and judicial functions, I argue that widespread recognition of rights for all living beings would shift immense power to courts and would straitjacket representative institutions, making them less responsive and less effective for solving social and environmental problems. Given the urgency of climate change and other global environmental harms, policymakers should work within liberal democratic institutions, rather than discarding or distorting them, to promote effective solutions.

Continue reading Anti-Democratic Rights of Nature.