NEWS: Ordinance in Pa. recognizes creatures/ecosystems as legalpersons - UK Guardian 11/08/06

[Guest guest]

A community in Pennsylvania just passed a law recognizing "wild

entities" as persons having legal rights -- a good first step --now if

only it can be extended to cows!

 

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hkdd

 

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On Thin Ice*

 

by Simon Boyle

The Guardian UK

 

Wednesday 08 November 2006

 

*/Could "wild laws" protecting all the Earth's community - including

animals, plants, rivers and ecosystems - save our natural world?/*

 

....A body of legal opinion is proposing what are being called "wild

laws", which would speak for birds and animals, and even rivers and

nature. One of the first was introduced in September, when *a community

of about 7,000 people in Pennsylvania...adopted what is called the

Tamaqua Borough Sewage Sludge Ordinance, 2006.*

 

It was hardly an event to set the world alight, except for two

things: * _It refuses to recognise corporations' rights to apply sewage

sludge to land, and it recognises natural communities and ecosystems

within the borough as "legal persons" for the purposes of enforcing

civil rights._* * According to* *Thomas Linzey [a major figure in

the movement to de-personify corps. - mw]*, the lawyer from the

Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund, who helped draft it, *_this

is historic. _*

 

Imagine if it happened here. Fish, trees, fresh water, or any

elements of the environment, would be recognised as having legal

rights. *Local communities threatened with a damaging development would

be able to act to protect their environment by asserting fundamental

rights on behalf of the environment*, instead of fighting losing battles

against landowners' property rights.

 

The idea has implications for climate change and other debates.

*The right of polar bears to exist as part of an intact Arctic community

could be asserted in court to obtain injunctions against a range of

activities that could infringe that right.* *_The law would also

restrict the mandates and powers of public institutions and entities

such as companies to do anything that increased greenhouse gas

emissions, deeming this to be an infringement not only of human rights,

but also of the rights of the whole "Earth community." _*

 

The term "wild law" was first coined by Cormac Cullinan, a lawyer

based in Cape Town, South Africa. Put simply,* it is about the need for

a change in our relationship with the natural world, from one of

exploitation to a more "democratic" participation in a community of

other beings*. If we are members of a community, Cullinan says, then

our rights must be balanced against those of plants, animals, rivers and

ecosystems. This means developing new laws that require the integrity

and functioning of the whole Earth community to be prioritised. *In a

world governed by wild law, the destructive, human-centred exploitation

of the natural world would be unlawful. *

 

For example, the application of wild law principles would have made

a big difference in Belize, where the government wanted to dam the Macal

River for energy production, despite the devastation that would be

caused. Because Belize is a Commonwealth country, the case was heard by

the Privy Council in London, which voted by a majority of three to two

to permit the project.

 

The decision was interesting because it was clear that all the

judges knew that the dam would cause an irreversible reduction of

biological diversity, but were unable to use this as justification to

prevent the project. If, however, the building of the dam had raised

issues of human rights, then that would have been a relevant judicial

matter. The application of wild law would have meant the full impact on

the natural environment would have been taken into account.

 

Ecosystems are resilient and can absorb punishment before they reach

the point where they begin to break down. This has allowed most people

to ignore the environmental consequences of human behaviour because the

impact has so far been limited. But that period is now over, and

climate change is here to stay. The warnings of the recent Stern report

are focusing greater concerns on the implications for society as a

whole, and it seems that there is now political consensus - in Britain,

at least - on the need for urgent action at every level to combat

climate change.

 

*The proponents of wild law argue that, paraphrasing Einstein, we

are not going to solve this problem using the same thinking that caused

it in the first place*. Climate change is not going to be sorted out by

merely tinkering with existing mechanisms....What we now need, they say,

is a vision of how human beings can live more fulfilled lives as

responsible citizens of Earth....

 

/Simon Boyle is legal director of consultants, Argyll

Environmental Ltd. The Wild Law convention is being hosted this weekend

in London by the UK Environmental Law Association and the Environmental

Law Foundation. Details at www.ukela.org <http://www.ukela.org/>./

 

 

 

Molly Willcox wrote: