Rights of Nature, Animals Rights: What’s the Difference?

Rights of Nature, Animals Rights: What’s the Difference?

Though seemingly similar or even interchangeable at first glance, rights of nature and animal rights are concepts that are different in practice, yet do intersect and support each other. As Earth law develops around the world, understanding these perspectives in which rights are viewed is crucial.

Animal Rights: Individuals

The idea of animal rights has long been involved with ideas of animal welfare and protection. This movement stresses that animals have inherent value and don’t exist to be used by humans. Focuses of the animal rights movement might range from tackling the ethics in the consumption or captivity of animals to recognition of human-like cognitive and emotional abilities. Although, this varies significantly among nations, influenced by factors such as their economies, religions, etc.

The Nonhuman Rights Project has also done extensive work in this area, advocating for the legal personhood of animals and the right to not be imprisoned/experimented upon. Mainly, they have helped in cases of mistreatment of chimpanzees and elephants in captivity through petitioning for writs of habeas corpus in challenging the detainment of these animals. One of their longest running cases concerns Happy, an elephant kept alone in the Bronx Zoo (since 1977) who was ruled in June to not be a legal person, though two dissenters stressed Happy’s rights of liberty and autonomy.

Looking at legislation, the recognition of animal sentience is another emerging trend, although this does not go so far as to establish rights for animals. In the UK, the recently passed Animal Welfare (Sentience) Act states that vertebrate animals, along with decapods and cephalopods (e.g. lobsters, octopus) are seen as sentient. This would allow for future considerations of animal welfare in policy development.

Rights of Nature: Ecosystems

Rather than focusing on individual animals and their well-being, the Rights of Nature recognizes the rights of entire ecosystems. This means considering all the biotic and abiotic features and the right of these ecosystems to thrive and flourish without human alteration or damage. Put into action, a focus is on giving ecosystems legal guardianship and personhood.

One example of this is with rights of rivers. To assert these rights, giving rivers legal personhood helps protect them as they can then be represented in court. This has occurred with all the rivers in Bangladesh and the Atrato River in Columbia, and many others. These actions have often been motivated by growing concerns of pollution in the environment and support from Indigenous nations.

Rights of Nature may also be addressed on a larger scale on the national level. Most recently in 2022, with the input and support from Earth Law Center in the drafting process, a law signed by the President of Panama now includes provisions for people and corporations to protect and be able to defend the Rights of Nature, while stressing the ancestral knowledge of Indigenous peoples in this process. Similar laws in Bolivia and Ecuador also reform the way nature is viewed, shifting away from seeing nature as existing for human use.

Interconnectedness is Key

In many ways, the animal rights movement is connected to the Rights of Nature and the two often work towards similar goals. A recent ruling by Ecuador’s Constitutional Court concerning a woolly monkey named Estrellita exemplifies this. The librarian keeping Estrellita had filed a petition for her return after authorities seized and relocated Estrellita to a zoo due to the keeping of wild animals being illegal. The court ruled 7-2 in applying the Rights of Nature to this case. 

While Rights of Nature values overall ecosystem health, considering things such as keystone or invasive species, this case showed that such principles can be applied to animal rights issues too.

As both animal rights and Rights of Nature continue to be relevant and important in today’s world, it is through reconciling them with each other, with regard to human rights movements, that progress will be furthered.