The recent recognition of the Rights of Nature (RoN) in the legal sphere presents significant challenges in its implementation. In modern States, justice is predominantly a human domain, based on the assumption that only in this realm can objectivity supersede subjectivity, rationality override emotionality, and the social transcend the natural. Consequently, the recognition of the Rights of Nature has required judicial systems to strive to overcome anthropocentric perspectives in order to advance biocentric and ecocentric frameworks. However, a critical question arises: How can non-human entities be formally recognized as subjects of justice? What poses a challenge for Western justice systems seems to be inherent in Indigenous justice systems, where the spiritual, human, and natural realms are not compartmentalized. The nature-culture nexus has been integrated from the perspectives of communities that maintain direct relationships with and dependencies on land and water sources, highlighting the relevance of worldviews that transcend segmented anthropocentric perspectives. To shed light on these challenges, this chapter proposes a theoretical-methodological analysis grounded in political ontology and the biocultural approach, aiming to facilitate dialogue between State legal systems and Indigenous customary law. We argue that biocultural rights and the recognition of legal pluralism offer the advantage of recognizing the role of communities as interactive participants in their territories, presenting an alternative for the decolonization of the Rights of Nature.

This article examines the relationship and conflicts between the Rights of Nature (RoN) framework and the Indigenous right to territory. While RoN has gained recognition across several jurisdictions as a response to the global ecological crisis, it often stems from Western moral-philosophical perspectives supported by conservationist and scientific debates. By contrast, the right to territory of Indigenous peoples represent a struggle for the recognition of ontological and relational plurality arising with the Indigenous peoples-environment nexus. Through analysis of diverse ecocentric frameworks and their legal applications, the article assesses the extent to which the recognition of rights to nature does not always align with Indigenous claims about territory. Additionally, it cautions against the risks of imposing Western ecocentric categories onto Indigenous struggles, which may replicate colonial logics underlying dominant ecocentric approaches. The article concludes by proposing an interpretation of RoN that embraces epistemic plurality and the ontological-relational representation of nature of Indigenous peoples to create spaces for equitable dialogue and strategic alliances between the right to territory of Indigenous peoples and RoN in the fight against anthropocentrism in courts.

This chapter delves into the concept of ‘Rights of Nature’ (RoN) through a semiotic lens; in particular, the ethnological semiology of Jean Baudrillard has significantly influenced this contribution. RoN challenges conventional anthropocentric legal paradigms by integrating Indigenous cosmovisions in Western jurisprudence. By examining legislative examples such as New Zealand’s Te Awa Tupua Act and Australia’s Yarra River Protection Act, this chapter assesses whether these recognitions faithfully reflect Indigenous viewpoints or merely adapt nature into pre-existing Western ontological (legal) philosophies.

RoN frequently intersects with Indigenous cosmovisions, suggesting a profound, metaphysical significance beyond Western legal constructs. This discussion illuminates the evolving character of RoN and its interplay with legal pluralism. The incorporation of RoN into Western legal systems unveils a dynamic where Indigenous knowledge is recognised but simultaneously streamlined to conform to established legal structures.

The chapter further contemplates the possibility that RoN may simply codify Indigenous rights without capturing the full depth of Indigenous perspectives. Ultimately, RoN signifies an endeavour to broaden the legal recognition of nature and its purported intrinsic values, albeit at the risk of misrepresenting Indigenous knowledge as mere extensions of Western legal ontology. In doing so, RoN adorns itself with the Indigenous symbol and ritual to advance environmental politics.

Chapter 5 examines constitutional, legislative, and judicial developments in protecting the rights of nature in the United States and around the world. While significant progress has been made in advancing the rights of nature, there is an evolving backlash movement that has sought to declare such efforts unconstitutional. In the United States, rights of nature initiatives have been successfully implemented in many Indigenous communities and at the local government level, though some states have invalidated or are seeking to invalidate local rights of nature protections. The chapter provides an in-depth exploration of nations that have implemented rights of nature measures in their constitutions, legislation, and case law. Ecuador, Bolivia, and Colombia have been leaders in Latin America in promoting rights of nature protections. The chapter also compares New Zealand’s leadership on rights of nature measures with Australia’s challenges in making progress in this space. The chapter concludes with summaries of leading International Rights of Nature Tribunal decisions from various countries, with a focus on rights of nature analysis in the context of climate change challenges.

Chapter 6, “Envisioning a Pluriversal Governance: Scientific and Indigenous Ontologies in the Amazon”, examines the prospects for including scientific and indigenous ontologies in the international governance of the Amazon. The Chapter assesses the different governance models for enlarging ecological democracy and having nature’s interests represented in political spaces. For this aim, it analyzes the most prominent scientific bodies dealing with the climate emergency, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), compared to the Science Panel for the Amazon (SPA), the first scientist platform dedicated to the largest rainforest in the world. The Chapter proposes enlarging ecological democracy under a pluriversal governance in which nation-states, scientists, and Indigenous peoples would share the political stage to negotiate their different worldviews and the authority to represent their own natural worlds. This might trigger ontological clashes, but also the possibility of creating ontological coalitions around indigenous rights, the protection of nature, and the appropriate means to deal with the climate crisis in the basin.

This chapter reviews the reach of public trust principles across the globe and compares them to a competing model of environmental rights, the rights of nature movement. The former affirms public rights to the environment, while the latter confers rights on the environment itself. Both reflect dissatisfaction with the failure of existing laws to ensure environmental stewardship. The rise of such advocacy responds to the missing foundations for environmental law identified in the Introduction, including weak constitutional foundations in the United States. Exploration begins with a review of public trust principles around the world, followed by a whirlwind tour of global rights of nature initiatives. The rights of nature movement provides an unapologetically biocentric alternative to the inherent anthropocentrism of the public trust and more typical environmental laws, which also premise the value of natural resources on their human beneficiaries – yet they are evolving along similar legal pathways. The chapter concludes with comparative analysis of the two approaches, contrasting the underlying ethics that divide them while recognizing the practical characteristics that unite them.

Failures of environmental law to preserve, protect and improve the environment are caused by law’s contingency and constitutional presumptions of supremacy over the self-regulatory agency of nature. Contingency problems are intrinsic to law and, therefore, invite deployment of technologies. Constitutional presumptions can be corrected through geo-constitutional reform. The latter requires the elaboration of geo-constitutional principles bestowing authority on nature’s self-regulatory agency. It is suggested that principles of autonomy, loyalty, pre-emption, supremacy and rights have potential to serve that aim and imply proactive roles for technologies in environmental governance. Geo-constitutional reform is necessary to prevent the fatal collapse of the natural regulatory infrastructure enabling life and a future of environmental governance by design. Once environmental catastrophe has materialized, however, geo-constitutionalism loses its raison d’être.

This chapter explores the intersections and distinctions between One Health, EcoHealth, and Planetary Health: three leading interdisciplinary approaches to global health. While aligned in their holistic focus on human, animal, and environmental health, these paradigms differ in scope, priorities, and their influence on legal frameworks. Recent efforts to merge these approaches offer practical benefits but raise critical questions about their individual contributions and legal implications.

The chapter examines three key areas: (1) the similarities and differences in how these approaches advocate for legal inclusion and reform, (2) how each approach frames its initiatives in relation to the others, and (3) the impact of these paradigms on existing national and international laws.

By analysing these paradigms’ contributions, the chapter highlights how One Health can learn from EcoHealth and Planetary Health to better integrate into legal systems. This comparative study underscores opportunities for these approaches to complement each other, advancing innovative, sustainable, and equitable frameworks for addressing global health challenges.

Chapter 2 explores the constitutive elements of global environmental governance. International environmental governance works when states fulfill the commitments they undertake under international law, such as the obligation to exchange information on transboundary environmental risks and impacts and the duty to notify and consult with other states with regard to such risks and impacts. Mechanisms of global environmental governance include also environmental impact assessments and strategic impact assessments. The chapter examines, furthermore, how the monitoring, control, and surveillance (MCS) of compliance with international environmental obligations has been modernized by the wide application of technologies. It explores whether green democracy has become a universal aspirational principle, and how the system for the protection of human rights has been used as a tool for the protection of the environment, lending support to the emergence of a right to a healthy environment. Whether nature, as a legal entity, should be accorded rights and have a say on the development plans of states is also analyzed.