By Monishaa Suresh
This is the first entry of a two-part post on environmental personhood. It defines and explains the history of environmental personhood both domestically and internationally. The second post explores the concept of legal personhood for rivers with a focus on two rivers that have already been granted personhood — the Whanganui in New Zealand and the Atrato in Colombia.
“Legal personhood” can be conferred to non-human entities, essentially treating them as people for limited legal purposes such as allowing the entities to sue, own property, and enter into contracts. This is not a new concept as corporations have long been considered “legal persons.” This then begs the question: if we can confer such legal protection to multi-billion dollar corporations, why can’t we do the same for the environment?
Continue reading “Environmental Personhood and the Rights of Rivers”