OKLAHOMA CITY – The concept that Nature should have legal “rights” is gradually acquiring a foothold in the U.S. and elsewhere.
The notion that woods and streams should have protected legal rights was first proposed more than 50 years ago by a law professor at the University of Southern California. While teaching an introductory course on property law in 1971, Christopher Stone asked his students what would happen if the law granted rights to trees or rocks. He even wrote a law review article entitled, “Should Trees Have Standing? – Toward Legal Rights for Natural Objects.”
The late U.S. Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas, an avid outdoorsman, wrote in the landmark environmental case Sierra Club v. Morton (1972) that if entities such as corporations and maritime ships can be considered persons for the purposes of adjudicatory processes:
“So it should be as respects valleys, alpine meadows, rivers, lakes, estuaries, beaches, ridges, groves of trees, swampland, or even air that feels the destructive pressures of modern technology and modern life. The river, for example, is the living symbol of all the life it sustains or nourishes—fish, aquatic insects, water ouzels, otter, fisher, deer, elk, bear, and all other animals, including man, who are dependent on it or who enjoy it for its sight, its sound, or its life. The river as plaintiff speaks for the ecological unit of life that is part of it.”
One such case is pending in the Ninth Circuit Court of the Sunshine State.
Voters in Florida’s Orange County passed a law in 2020 that gave legal rights to elements of nature, including lakes and creeks. The law is based on what is known as “the rights of nature”.
Lawsuit filed
on behalf of
water sources
Charles O’Neal, president of Speak Up Wekiva (an organization named for a river that flows near his home) and formerly president, chairman and director-at-large of the Florida Rights of Nature Network, filed suit on behalf of Wild Cypress Branch, Boggy Branch, Crosby Island Marsh, Lake Hart, Lake Mary Jane “and all other affected Orange County Waters”.
A little over a year ago, on April 26, 2021, O’Neal filed the lawsuit against Beachline South Residential LLC and Noah Valenstein, Secretary of the Florida Department of Environmental Protection.
O’Neal and his ‘co-plaintiffs’ seek judicial declarations that Beachline’s proposed “Meridian Parks Remainder” development, and Valenstein’s issuance of wetlands dredge-and-fill permits to Beachline, would violate the county charter.
The Meridian Parks Remainder development, envisioned for a site just north of Lake Mary Jane in central Florida, would erect houses and office buildings on 1,900 acres – almost three square miles – of wetlands, cypress forest and pine flatlands.
Orange County encompasses the lake, the city of Orlando and much of Disney World. It is one of the fastest-growing counties in Florida.
An attorney acting on behalf of the two lakes, two streams and a marsh outside Orlando argued before a Florida judge on April 26 that the lawsuit against a developer is legally valid and belongs in state court.
Before addressing the Meridian Parks issues, the plaintiffs requested a temporary injunction that would halt the Florida DEP’s consideration of the Meridian Parks project permit until a parallel action filed in federal court in Washington, D.C., is resolved.
In that case, the Center for Biological Diversity, the Defenders of Wildlife, the Sierra Club, the Conservancy of Southwest Florida, the Florida Wildlife Federation, Miami Waterkeeper and the St. Johns Riverkeeper all sued the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and its administrator and several other agency executives, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and two of its officials, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and two of its executives.
In an amended complaint filed April 19, the plaintiffs contend that the EPA illegally approved Florida’s application to assume jurisdiction over the Clean Water Act’s program that regulates the dredging and filling of waters of the United States, “including wetlands essential to water quality, storm and climate resiliency, threatened and endangered species, and the economy.”
Underlying the EPA’s decision are “unlawful actions by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service,” the plaintiffs argue. And the Corps of Engineers’ list of waters over which it would retain jurisdiction is “arbitrarily and capriciously truncated in violation of the Rivers and Harbors Act and the Administrative Procedures Act.”
The Lake Mary Jane case is believed to be the first time an inanimate element of nature has gone to court to defend its “rights” in a U.S. courtroom. But it’s not the first time such a lawsuit has been filed.
Courts rule that
rivers and glaciers
merit personhood
In a rights of nature lawsuit filed in Ecuador in 2011, a court ruled that the Vilcabamba River was damaged by a road-widening project; the judge ordered remediation of the damage. And in 2017 a court in India ruled that the Ganges and Yamuna rivers, along with Himalayan glaciers and other natural elements, ought to be granted legal personhood.
Besides inanimate objects, several animals have had their day in court.
A chimpanzee ‘sued’ his New York owners for freedom in 2013 but lost.
An animal welfare advocacy organization sought to have Happy, an elephant that has lived at the Bronx Zoo in New York for about 50 years, declared “a person with a right to be free.” However, in 2020 the Bronx County Supreme Court sided with the zoo, which is operated by the Wildlife Conservation Society.
In 2018 the Animal Legal Defense Fund sued the former owner of a horse in Oregon named Justice because she left the animal outside during the winter without adequate food and shelter, resulting in severe injuries to the stallion.
A judge dismissed the case later that year on the grounds that the horse lacked legal standing to sue. Oregon law provides that animals can be considered individual victims in criminal cruelty cases, but the law does not state that animals can sue.
The former owner of Justice pleaded guilty to animal neglect and paid for some of the horse’s medical bills. Eventually the horse recovered from most, but not all, of his injuries.
Ecuador’s high court ruled earlier this year that wild animals possess distinct legal rights to exist, develop their innate instincts, and be free from disproportionate cruelty, fear, and distress. The landmark decision occurred in February after the nation’s top court interpreted the country’s “rights of nature” constitutional laws in a case involving a woolly monkey named Estrellita.
“Rights of nature” are laws that establish an ecosystem’s legal right to exist and regenerate.
Estrellita was removed from her habitat at one month old and kept in a private residence for 18 years. Because possession of a wild animal is illegal in Ecuador, Estrellita was seized by authorities in 2019 and placed in zoo care, where she died a month later after undergoing sudden cardiorespiratory arrest.
The court announced its 7-2 verdict, effectively awarding rights to Estrellita, in a 57-page opinion released last January. The decision marked the country’s first application of the rights of nature to a wild animal.
Scientists have pointed out that chimpanzees have the same ability as humans to manipulate their environment, use tools, and finish specific tasks. An adult pig has a comparative intelligence to a 3-year-old human child. Dolphins have a complex language and can recognize themselves in the mirror, which proves self-awareness. Elephants have complex social groups, display empathy and grief, and have an outstanding memory.
Does animal life
equal human life?
The quandary of animal rights is that it equates animal life with human life.
Much of the human diet comes from animal protein. According a cow or a pig the legal right to sue would disrupt the entire agricultural industry and potentially create more food deserts throughout the world.
Granting animals the full panoply of rights that humans have would change medication testing processes, too.
Many of the research projects that involve new medications test the products on animals before testing them on humans. The goal of doing so is to protect human lives by seeing how a medication would react. Some animals, such as rats and chimpanzees, have a DNA profile that is similar to humans. The data gathered can help researchers understand more about the medication they’re working on to benefit humans.
Laws already penalize humans who abuse animals. But if animal rights were equal to human rights, would families be allowed to keep dogs, cats, ferrets and parakeets as pets?
As one observer remarked, “How we treat animals is a reflection of how we treat others. Giving animals more protections under the laws that govern property may make sense, but giving animals an equivalency may not. There is no easy answer or compromise to this debate.”