Do Rights of Nature Lead to Healthier Ecosystems? Governance, Planetary Health, and the Boundaries of Legal Reform

A growing number of jurisdictions have granted rights to nature. Scholarship on these frameworks has been mainly legal and philosophical and has rarely asked whether legal recognition improves the condition of ecosystems. This paper takes up that question from a planetary health perspective, which treats ecosystem health as nested within the health of the Earth system as a whole. It is a reflexive discussion piece rather than a systematic review, because the available literature is too limited and heterogeneous to support formal synthesis. Cases from Ecuador, Colombia, Bolivia, New Zealand, Spain, Bangladesh, and the Netherlands are examined. The studies reviewed report mainly intermediate outcomes: court rulings, restoration obligations, coordination between agencies, and composite performance indices. Direct indicators of ecosystem structure, functioning, and resilience are largely absent. Five recurring mechanisms are identified: legal empowerment, a shift in how the living world is valued, guardianship institutions, integration across governance sectors, and precautionary decision-making. The evidence supports conclusions about institutional change; it does not yet support conclusions about ecological recovery.