Global Legal Pluralism and Rights of Nature

Can forests and rivers have rights? A legal innovation which originated in the Global South and which is making its way into the North, the rights of nature are of particular importance both for a decolonial conception of comparative law that avoids and overcomes Eurocentrism as well as for an analysis of global legal pluralism that reaches beyond state structures.

Edited by Institute Director Ralf Michaels and Daniel Bonilla Maldonado, professor of law at the Universidad de los Andes, Bogotá, the volume comprises two general reports, five special reports, and twenty country reports that were originally prepared for the 2022 Conference of the International Academy of Comparative Law and which have subsequently been comprehensively updated. By linking the rights of nature with discussions on global legal pluralism, the edited volume fosters a deeper understanding of both phenomena. The work, also available online as an open access publication, combines a treatment of substantive law with the analysis of socioeconomic and cultural conditions and examines, in particular, the local and transnational movements that stand behind the introduction of rights of nature.

Image: © Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Private Law