National Council on the Implementation of the Rights of Nature Launched-11/23/2020
Council Includes Tribal and Environmental Advocates for Rights of Nature
Media Statement
November 23, 2020
Contact:
Thomas Linzey, Esq.
Senior Legal Counsel
509-474-9761
The Center for Democratic and Environmental Rights has announced the launch of a National Council on the Implementation of the Rights of Nature. The purpose of the Council will be to make recommendations to President-Elect Joe Biden’s administration on ways to integrate the rights of nature into federal law, and to propose new legislative and policy changes to recognize those rights.
The “rights of nature” movement, as it has become known, is advancing legally enforceable rights for ecosystems and the natural environment and providing enforcement mechanisms to defend and implement those rights.
The Council was established in the wake of a recommendation by the Democratic National Committee’s Council on the Environment & Climate Crisis, which called for the establishment of a commission, similar to the President’s Council on Sustainable Development, to “explore incorporating Rights of Nature principles into U.S. law.” The recommendation followed on the heels of the 2016 Democratic National Platform, which recognized that nature “has the right to exist, persist, maintain, and regenerate its vital cycles.”
Local and national laws and constitutional frameworks, as well as judicial decisions, have secured legal rights of nature in countries including the U.S., Brazil, Ecuador, Bolivia, Colombia, Uganda, and Bangladesh. Tribal nations within the U.S., including the White Earth Band of Ojibwe, Menominee Tribe in Wisconsin, and the Yurok Tribe in California, have adopted rights of nature laws and policies into tribal governing frameworks. Further, legislation to protect the rights of nature has been introduced into state and national parliaments in Australia, Sweden, and the Philippines. These rights of nature laws seek to protect certain rights, including the rights of nature to exist, to regenerate, to evolve, and to be restored.
Council members include (organizations are listed for affiliation purposes only):
Frank Bibeau, Tribal Attorney, the White Earth Band of Ojibwe (MN)
Karenna Gore, the Center for Earth Ethics (NY)
Oliver Houck, Law Professor, Tulane Law School (LA)
Mari Margil, Executive Director, the Center for Democratic and Environmental Rights (WA)
Anahkwet (Guy Reiter), Executive Director-Menikanaehkem, Menominee Nation (WI)
Jason Rylander, Senior Counsel, Defenders of Wildlife (DC)
Chuck O’Neal, Chairman, the Florida Rights of Nature Network (FL)
Thomas Linzey, Senior Counsel, the Center for Democratic and Environmental Rights (WA)
Over the next several months, the Council will be meeting to select additional members, and to draft recommendations which will then be submitted to the Biden Administration for consideration and review.
The Council is being hosted by the Center for Democratic and Environmental Rights, a non-profit organization created to advance rights of nature frameworks in the United States and abroad. CDER partners with organizations in the U.S., Australia, Nepal, the Philippines, Ecuador, India, and elsewhere to create legally enforceable frameworks recognizing the rights of nature. Its founders drafted the first rights of nature laws in the world, including assisting with the drafting of the rights of nature constitutional provisions that are now part of the Ecuadorian Constitution.