The Legal Recognition of the Rights of Nature: Perspectives from the Global South

Ecuador’s 2008 Constitution recognizes nature’s rights to the maintenance and regeneration of its life cycles, structure, functions, and evolutionary processes. Ávila points to a tension within the same legal framework: nature is also treated as a source of resources that the state may authorize others to extract. He argues that extractive policies and a legal culture that views land and water as property have often prevailed over the Constitution’s recognition of nature as a rights-bearing subject.

González explains that the right to a healthy environment often protects nature because people need healthy environmental conditions. Rights of nature ask what an ecosystem itself needs to maintain its cycles and relationships. The Atrato case also brings in biocultural rights: the well-being of the river and the rights, culture, and ways of life of the communities along it cannot be understood in isolation.

González describes illegal gold mining and mercury contamination alongside deforestation, inadequate water and sanitation services, and armed conflict. She also explains the river’s place in community life: it is a route for travel and a setting for bathing, cooking, social ties, spiritual practices, and identity. Those relationships helped ground the Constitutional Court’s recognition of the Atrato as a subject of rights.

González says that Colombian decisions have identified rights and appointed guardians, but questions remain about the legal routes available to enforce those rights and how established ideas of legal personality apply to nature. Ávila adds that lawyers and judges are often trained to treat nature as property or an object of regulation. He urges them to engage with Indigenous knowledge and fields such as biology and hydrology when assessing an ecosystem’s needs.

Ávila points to Ecuador’s constitutional provision allowing any person, community, people, or nationality to demand enforcement of nature’s rights. González explains that Colombia’s judgments have instead designated legal representatives or guardians for particular entities. In the Atrato case, representation involves both public authorities and community delegates, raising practical questions about who speaks for the river and how decisions are made.

At the time of the webinar, González reported that illegal mining continued despite the judgment. She describes economic incentives, armed groups, weaknesses in state control, and the broader framework governing mining as obstacles to implementation. Restoring a damaged river also requires more than a declaration of rights: it calls for sustained measures that address the river and the communities’ relationship with it together.

González cautions against treating the Atrato decision as a formula for every ecosystem. Its reasoning reflects the particular history, communities, and biocultural relationships of the river basin. She recommends that decision-makers listen to local communities and adapt legal protections to the context. Ávila likewise stresses support from social movements and knowledge beyond law; without people working to implement a decision, recognition can remain on paper.

The conversation is useful for community advocates, litigators, judges, researchers, and students working on environmental justice or rights of nature. It offers two distinct routes to legal recognition and a practical question for anyone considering a similar case: who will carry the decision forward, and what knowledge, community participation, and public action will be needed to protect the ecosystem?