Utah Advances Anti-Rights of Nature Bill with Implications for Artificial Intelligence
By Madeleine Debele and the ELC Team
The Utah state legislature has in recent months advanced the anti-Rights of Nature legislation H.B. 249, which now awaits the governor’s signature. The bill, known as the “Utah Legal Personhood Amendments,” would explicitly prohibit state governmental entities from granting legal personhood to bodies of water, land, plants, nonhuman animals, and other categories—including artificial intelligence.
Florida, Ohio, and Idaho have taken similar anti-Rights of Nature stances in recent years, passing bills that preemptively reject localities within their states from passing Rights of Nature legislation or ordinances. The Utah legislative effort has prompted debate between proponents of a “Salt Lake Bill of Rights” and detractors. “I don’t want to live in a place where corporations can have legal personhood but living organisms cannot,” said Denise Cartwright, a founder of the group Save Our Great Salt Lake, in this article in Utah News Dispatch. By contrast, Utah representative Walt Brooks, who introduced the legislation, said, “This bill wasn’t intended about the Great Salt Lake at all when it first came up. It was just the sheer fact that state after state and all over the world, we’re seeing people abuse the situation of personhood to use it as a weapon.”
Earth Law Center (ELC), an advocate for the legal rights of ecosystems, stands in opposition to such anti-Rights of Nature laws. ELC upholds the importance of recognizing the intrinsic value of nature and emphasizes the possibility of acknowledging nature’s rights without the kinds of economic and legal harms these anti-Rights of Nature bills envision.
The Landscape of Legal Personhood for Nature
Legal personhood for nature involves recognizing the rights of ecosystems, including giving them standing to bring legal actions via legal proxies or guardianship bodies. Municipalities, counties, and a few states around the U.S. have explored this avenue as a means of bolstering environmental protection, in some cases passing Rights of Nature ordinances or resolutions. For example, the town of Nederland, Colorado recently passed into law an innovative guardianship structure for Boulder Creek.
Such legal initiatives show popular support in many areas, including Utah. According to a 2023 poll conducted by Utah State University, 60.1% of respondents “somewhat support” or “strongly support” the idea of changing water rights laws “to grant the Great Salt Lake its own rights to water to guarantee a consistent amount gets to it.” Nevertheless, Rights of Nature developments, such as the formation of grassroots groups and the passage of local ordinances, have provoked a backlash at the state level in Florida, Ohio, Idaho, and now Utah.
The Utah legislature’s rejection of legal personhood for nature is grounded in the belief that it could pose a threat to industries vital to the state's economy. As this legislative trend gains momentum, it sparks broader questions about the values that underpin our legal frameworks and the implications for the balance between economic prosperity and environmental well-being. In reality, Rights of Nature is not anti-business but instead seeks to harmonize business practices with the needs of nature in a way that benefits all humans and other species.
ELC joins other ecocentric organizations in vehemently opposing Utah’s anti-Rights of Nature legislation and similar legislative efforts across the United States. By prioritizing human interests over the well-being of ecosystems, such legislation perpetuates the view that nature is merely a resource to be exploited, rather than a complex and interconnected system deserving of protection. The consequences of such aggressive anthropocentrism will continue to be dire.
Great Salt Lake May Disappear in Coming Years, Leaving Toxic Legacy
That a conservative legislature such as Utah’s would take an anti-Rights of Nature stand at this moment is vexing but not surprising, since it is responding to new waves of environmental activism. Save Our Great Salt Lake and other advocacy groups argue that according rights to the lake might be a necessary step to prevent its total disappearance. All that is necessary for that disappearance to happen is for the lake to continue shrinking at the rate it has been for many years now. In other words, maintaining status quo water usage amidst increasing levels of warming and drought in Utah likely ensures that the lake will be drastically reduced or gone in a matter of years.
“Scientists predict that the loss of the Great Salt Lake, driven by human activities that divert water away from replenishing the lake as well as drought, could catalyze cascading ecological changes affecting the viability of multiple species, from birds to aquatic life,” notes environmental journalist Katie Surma in this article for Inside Climate News. “As the lake dries out, particulate matter, arsenic and other toxins in the lake bed are released into the atmosphere, affecting local communities.”
Advocates for legal personhood for natural bodies emphasize that it offers a mechanism to protect the environment, giving nature a voice in legal proceedings. ELC contends that this perspective goes beyond mere recognition of the instrumental value of nature. Granting legal personhood is a transformative step toward acknowledging the intrinsic value of ecosystems, a recognition that can foster a more harmonious relationship between humans and the environment—perhaps ultimately saving threatened ecosystems like the Great Salt Lake.
Balancing Human Needs and Ecological Preservation
The debate surrounding legal personhood for nature encapsulates broader considerations about the balance between human needs and ecological preservation. Proponents of laws restricting legal personhood argue that these measures are necessary for economic growth, supporting industries vital to the well-being of communities. ELC and other critics, however, underscore the long-term consequences of prioritizing short-term economic gains over environmental sustainability.
This balancing act is not just a legislative challenge but a philosophical and ethical one. It requires a careful examination of our relationship with the environment and a recognition that the well-being of ecosystems is intertwined with human prosperity. Although advocates for legislation such as that currently being considered by Utah often caricature Rights of Nature as implausible or absurd—for instance, attempting to frighten people with the idea that they’ll be sued by their own pets or plants—this perspective fails to account for the current existence of competing rights. For example, fundamental human rights recognized in the U.S. Constitution, such as the freedom of religion and free speech, often come into conflict and need to be processed in culture and at times adjudicated by the courts. There is no reason to think that such compromise and adjudication could not be extended to include Rights of Nature.
As a case in point, the legal development of Rights of Nature is perhaps more advanced in Ecuador than anywhere else in the world. Yet Ecuadorian environmental laws have not put a stop to economic development. Like with most laws that have give and take, the courts are working to strike functional balances between the interests and rights of differing parties, including nature. As Ecuadorian mining continues, so does litigation. There will always be push and pull, but current anti-Rights of Nature legislation advocates for push alone.
Implications for Artificial Intelligence
As the legal landscape around the personhood of nature unfolds, it has begun bringing forth implications for artificial intelligence (AI) and its role in environmental management. The Utah legislation is the second (following Idaho), though likely not the last, anti-Rights of Nature bill to attempt to fold these issues together, denying personhood both to nature and to forms of artificial intelligence. Whereas such laws are responding to the already existing movement to accord personhood and rights to nature, the blockage of such moves for AI is at this point purely speculative. Very few AI experts claim that an artificial general intelligence has yet been created, much less that it should be accorded personhood and rights if and when it does.
Even so, AI personhood could become an increasingly relevant issue as the technology develops. Some people are worried about a range of societal challenges arising from AI—including, at its extreme, an existential threat faced by humans. (Whether preemptively stripping AI of access to personhood and any potential rights would reduce these risks is unclear. Some pundits argue that it could have the opposite effect, by creating an “us versus them” dichotomy that would work against humans in the future.) Others believe that humans should learn from the failures of our commodification of the natural world and change tack, establishing a reciprocal relationship with advanced AI rather than treating it as our property. This perspective is more open to ideas such as AI rights or personhood.
Regardless one’s perspective on AI, it seems that technologists, futurists, and Earth law advocates have become bedfellows as targets of state-level efforts to preempt the extension of legal personhood or rights to entities that currently lack them.
