Creator of the legal personality of nature, the Californian jurist has returned to the hunting grounds of his ancestors.
In 2017, New Zealand and India took environmental law further than ever before. That year, jurists from both countries granted legal personality to three rivers: the Whanganui (New Zealand), the Ganges and the Yamuna (India).
This revolution now allows citizens or associations to take legal action on behalf of one of these three sacred rivers (for Maoris and Hindus) if they feel they are under threat. Nor is there anything to prevent a contract being concluded between a human entity and the river. Useful, for example, if you want to preserve a minimum flow in times of drought.
Legal protection of nature
This revolutionary measure owes much to a man long since forgotten, who has just succumbed to Alzheimer’s disease. An indisputable professor of law at the University of Southern California, Christopher Stone paved the way for the legal protection of nature. In 1972, he published a voluminous 50-page paper calling for the granting of “legal rights to forests, oceans, rivers and all so-called ‘natural objects’ in the environment”, he wrote in the introduction to his paper.
A total stranger to environmental issues, Christopher Stone became interested in the subject following a resounding lawsuit in the late 1960s between the Walt Disney Company and the Sierra Club. The environmental NGO wanted to prevent Mickey’s group from razing a Californian forest to build a ski resort capable of accommodating 2 million guests a year. The dispute was finally settled by the US Supreme Court.
Should trees plead?
In a famous decision handed down on April 19, 1972, the highest court in the United States finally ruled against the environmentalists. According to the judges, the environmentalists had no valid reason to take legal action, as they had suffered no direct injury. The Californian jurist saw in this extraordinary case a formidable subject for study. His article, later developed into a book, was translated into French under the title: “Les arbres doivent-ils plaider? Unsurprisingly, his answer was obviously positive.
Constitutional Charter
Of course, he concedes, oaks and redwoods can’t sue directly. But this is also the case for certain human beings, such as the mentally handicapped. The obstacle can easily be circumvented, he continues, by entrusting this task to a guardian, as is often the case with children. This proposal earned him renown and sarcasm among his peers.
Does this mean that the legal personality of nature is the future of environmental law? It all depends, no doubt, on the country and the theme. Admittedly, the principle has not yet been incorporated into the French Environmental Code. However, the French Constitutional Charter for the Environment, adopted in 2004, recalls that “the future and very existence of humanity are inseparable from its natural environment”. That still doesn’t make elm trees justiciable. But this principle should de facto prohibit any destruction of the natural environment.
In 2010, scientists published the Cetacean Bill of Rights. Still little-known, this non-binding text stipulates that whales, dolphins and sperm whales have the right to live freely in their natural environment. These principles are all too often flouted. But what is justice doing?
