Legal initiatives recognizing the rights of nature have transformed from a trickle to a cascade. As of January 1, 2024, a total of 493 proposals of this sort have been pursued in 44 jurisdictions and international venues like the United Nations, according to figures compiled by the Eco Jurisprudence Monitor. Approximately three-fourths have been approved. These initiatives doubled between 2011 and 2016 and then again between 2016 and 2021.
More-than-human rights
This trend is part of a growing interdisciplinary interest in ecocentric approaches to what ecophilosopher David Abrams calls the “more-than-human world”: the web of life that includes humans and nonhumans alike. In the legal field, this has manifested in a proliferation of conceptual and doctrinal debates on “more-than-human rights,” as one of us has proposed to call rights of nature in a recently published volume. Given the complexity and recency of this debate, many key questions remain open: Who counts as a subject of rights? Should legal protection be granted to individuals, species or whole ecosystems? Who, if anyone, speaks for nature?
However, less attention has been paid to the impact of more-than-human rights, especially of court rulings that have recognized the legal personhood of nonhumans—from animals to forests and rivers.
The Los Cedros ruling
To contribute to filling this gap, the More-Than-Human Life (MOTH) Project and the Earth Rights Research and Action (TERRA) Clinic at NYU School of Law conducted a systematic study on the implementation of one of the most prominent decisions of this sort. In 2021, Ecuador’s Constitutional Court ruled in favor of Los Cedros Forest, a highly biodiverse cloud forest in Ecuador. Invoking the pioneering recognition of the rights of nature in the 2008 Ecuadorian constitution, the ruling came in response to the government’s issuance of mining licenses within the forest. The Court found that mining activities would cause environmental degradation in violation of fundamental rights and the rights of nature—specifically, the rights of Los Cedros to exist and regenerate through healthy life cycles. It declared the permits void and held that activities threatening the rights of nature—including all types of mining activities—were prohibited within Los Cedros.
The Court’s decision includes orders for government agencies and mining companies previously operating in Los Cedros, including Empresa Nacional Minera (ENAMI) and its partners.
Evaluating compliance
Our report, written in collaboration with TERRA NYU students, evaluated the implementation and level of government and corporate compliance with the Constitutional Court’s orders as of June 2024. The assessment is based on a combination of qualitative methods, including field visits to Los Cedros (in October 2022 and May 2024), and a systematic review of primary and secondary sources, as well as interviews with key actors in the enforcement of the ruling.
The report shows that the enforcement of the rights of nature and rulings like Los Cedros can be effective tools to protect endangered ecosystems whose survival and flourishing are essential to addressing ecological crises. Unlike many other forests and ecosystems that have succumbed to the pressure of mining and other extractive projects across the world, Los Cedros remains a source of life for humans and nonhumans. As our report shows, mining operations stopped in Los Cedros the month after the ruling. Los Cedros continues to exist as a biodiversity hot spot and as a source of well-being for humans and nonhumans alike. Without the ruling, Los Cedros would likely have faced environmental degradation and significant species extinction, as have other forests in Ecuador and worldwide that have been affected by mining.
The results of the implementation of other court orders show opportunities for further action. The Ministry of the Environment, Water, and Ecological Transition (MAATE, for its name in Spanish), tasked with overseeing the ruling’s implementation, has failed to implement a management plan with community participation for the forest’s protection. Since mid-2023, MAATE has done little to ensure compliance with the ruling and rights of nature in Ecuador. In contrast, the Ombudsman’s Office has largely fulfilled its responsibilities, monitoring compliance and urging MAATE to adhere to the ruling.
In sum, the ruling has been remarkably effective in terms of its immediate and direct impact on the protection of the forest as a subject of rights vis-à-vis the threat of large-scale mining. These victories invite further attention to the ruling’s indirect effects on community involvement and to the need to strengthen regulation and administrative procedures on rights of nature writ large.
Shifting responsibility
The success in protecting the forest from mining does not mean that the future of Los Cedros and the rights of nature in Ecuador are on strong footing. The report indicates that, because of the Ecuadorian government’s insufficient actions, the protection of Los Cedros has fallen to other actors.
Specifically, the burden of implementing the ruling has largely fallen on the Los Cedros Scientific Station, which, despite limited resources and personnel, has been solely responsible for monitoring wildlife and detecting illegal activities in the forest since 1988. The Station also trains local community members to help protect the forest, but even with these efforts, it recognizes that its capacity to adequately protect Los Cedros is insufficient.
To address these challenges and consolidate the precedent of the Los Cedros ruling, urgent and ongoing action from domestic and international actors is needed. The Ecuadorian State bears responsibility to make up for lost time by supporting the Scientific Station and enabling the participation of local communities. Similarly, the continued engagement of domestic and international civil society and scientific and intergovernmental organizations will be crucial for the fate of Los Cedros. The Los Cedros litigation involved biologists, environmental collectives, artists, celebrities, and online supporters who provided evidence to the Court, crafted campaigns in support of the lawsuit, and turned Los Cedros into an icon of biodiversity protection. They and all others who have been inspired by it should keep their eyes on the implementation of the ruling.
This article builds on the report “The Impacts of the Rights of Nature: Assessing the Implementation of the Los Cedros Ruling in Ecuador” published by the NYU MOTH project and the TERRA Program. A longer version of this article was published in Verfassungsblog.