Rechten van de Natuur en Mensenrechten: een gebrekkige analogie?

Rights of Nature is a legal, philosophical, and political discourse advocating for granting legal rights to natural entities like rivers and forests. Various countries, including Colombia, New Zealand, Ecuador, and Spain, have taken steps to recognize nature as a legal subject with (inherent) rights. These developments reflect the growing prominence of the Rights of Nature discourse as a response to the perceived shortcomings of conventional legal and moral approaches in addressing the ecological crises of climate change, pollution, and biodiversity loss. The Rights of Nature discourse challenges anthropocentric legal frameworks by proposing that nature should be considered a subject of rights similar to human rights; however, this analogy is fundamentally flawed. The dissertation argues that nature does not meet the criteria for rights-holding subjects in liberal moral and legal traditions. Instead, it advocates for a shift from rights to obligations as a more coherent framework. The dissertation highlights existing legal frameworks in environmental and human rights law that impose obligations on states to protect nature. It promotes the enhancement of these frameworks rather than adopting the Rights of Nature. This agent-centered approach, which focuses on obligations, underscores humanity's moral and legal responsibility toward nature.