Global Alliance partners include the US Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF); Ecuador's Fundación Pachamama and its supporters in the Pachamama Alliance; Cormac Cullinan's EnAct International; Maud Barlow's Council of Canadians; Global Exchange, and many other NGOs; its Advisory Council includes Vandana Shiva.Reference books:
Cormac Cullinan, Wild Law: A Manifesto for Earth Justice (2nd ed. 2011); The Rights of Nature (2011); Does Nature Have Rights? (2011) online with the full article by the co-founders of Pachamama Alliance; what follows is an excerpt.
The Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature
By Natalia Greene and Bill Twist, co-founders of Pachamama Alliance in Ecuador
On the first days of September 2010, conscious individuals and organizations, with the background of having worked to promote the recognition and guarantee of Rights for Nature, met in Patate, Ecuador, in Hacienda Manteles, at the foot of the Tungurahua Volcano and gave rise to the Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature.
Recognizing that exploitation, abuse, and contamination have caused the destruction, degradation and disruption of Mother Earth (1), putting all life at risk through phenomena such as climate change; the Global Alliance [warns of] a multi-dimensional crisis and collapse of an unsustainable system based on accumulation and disrespect for nature.
The Global Alliance, convinced that we are an interdependent living community, and recognizing that ancient native communities have always defended Mother Earth’s rights because those rights are innate to their cosmovision (2), recognize that nature is not an object or commodity, but a subject of inalienable rights to exist, maintain and integrally regenerate its vital cycles, structure, functions and evolutionary processes.
Its objective is to encourage the recognition and effective implementation (3) of the Rights of Nature through the creation of a world network of individuals and organizations that through active cooperation, collective action and legal tools, based on Rights of Nature as an idea whose time has come, can change the wrong direction towards which humanity is taking our Planet.
In 2008, Ecuador became the first country in the world to include this recognition in its National Constitution. In the United States, more than 100 communities have included this recognition in their local ordinances. In April, 2010, Bolivia hosted the first Peoples Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth in Cochabamba. The Global Alliance… encourages the UN adoption of the Universal Declaration of Mother Earth Rights…. The Global Alliance, aims at becoming a platform to share the experience and expertise of its
By driving Rights for Nature into law and creating global, national and local jurisdiction and cases that guarantee these Rights, will serve as a starting point to reproduce this concept virally though the world, invading systems of thought and juridical systems. The world could be a different place if crimes against Nature could be dealt internationally in an International Rights of Nature Court, if humans understood that they we are part of nature and whatever we do to the planet we do to each other.
The Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature calls upon all organizations and people of the Earth to join in the Rights of Nature as an idea whose time has come. Mother Earth (3) and we, her children, are in extreme peril; we must unite and ACT NOW!references to aboriginal traditions:
1 Pachamama: (Kichwa) Mother Earth, only broader, i.e. Mother Cosmos
2 Cosmovision: world view, philosophy of life
3 Minka: (Kichwa) collective community work for the betterment of all
Universal Declaration of Rights of Mother Earth
at April 22, 2010 World People’s Conference on Climate Change
and the Rights of Mother Earth, Cochabamba, BoliviaPreamble
We, the peoples and nations of Earth:
- considering that we are all part of Mother Earth, an indivisible, living community of interrelated and interdependent beings with a common destiny;
- gratefully acknowledging that Mother Earth is the source of life, nourishment and learning and provides everything we need to live well;
- recognizing that the capitalist system and all forms of depredation, exploitation, abuse and contamination have caused great destruction, degradation and disruption of Mother Earth, putting life as we know it today at risk through phenomena such as climate change;
- convinced that in an interdependent living community it is not possible to recognize the rights of only human beings without causing an imbalance within Mother Earth;
- affirming that to guarantee human rights it is necessary to recognize and defend the rights of Mother Earth and all beings in her and that there are existing cultures, practices and laws that do so;
- conscious of the urgency of taking decisive, collective action to transform structures and systems that cause climate change and other threats to Mother Earth;
- proclaim this Universal Declaration of the Rights of Mother Earth, and call on the General Assembly of the United Nation to adopt it, as a common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations of the world, and to the end that every individual and institution takes responsibility for promoting through teaching, education, and consciousness raising, respect for the rights recognized in this Declaration and ensure through prompt and progressive measures and mechanisms, national and international, their universal and effective recognition and observance among all peoples and States in the world.
(1) Mother Earth is a living being.
(2) Mother Earth is a unique, indivisible, self-regulating community of interrelated beings that sustains, contains and reproduces all beings.
(3) Each being is defined by its relationships as an integral part of Mother Earth.
(4) The inherent rights of Mother Earth are inalienable in that they arise from the same source as existence.
(5) Mother Earth and all beings are entitled to all the inherent rights recognized in this Declaration without distinction of any kind, such as may be made between organic and inorganic beings, species, origin, use to human beings, or any other status.
(6) Just as human beings have human rights, all other beings also have rights which are specific to their species or kind and appropriate for their role and function within the communities within which they exist.
(7) The rights of each being are limited by the rights of other beings and any conflict between their rights must be resolved in a way that maintains the integrity, balance and health of Mother Earth.
Article 2. Inherent Rights of Mother Earth
(1) Mother Earth and all beings of which she is composed have the following inherent rights:
(a) the right to life and to exist;
(b) the right to be respected;
(c) the right to regenerate its bio-capacity and to continue its vital cycles and processes free from human disruptions;
(d) the right to maintain its identity and integrity as a distinct, self-regulating and interrelated being;
(e) the right to water as a source of life;
(f) the right to clean air;
(g) the right to integral health;
(h) the right to be free from contamination, pollution and toxic or radioactive waste;
(i) the right to not have its genetic structure modified or disrupted in a manner that threatens it integrity or vital and healthy functioning;
(j) the right to full and prompt restoration the violation of the rights recognized in this Declaration caused by human activities;
(2) Each being has the right to a place and to play its role in Mother Earth for her harmonious functioning.
(3) Every being has the right to wellbeing and to live free from torture or cruel treatment by human beings.
Article 3. Obligations of human beings to Mother Earth
(1) Every human being is responsible for respecting and living in harmony with Mother Earth.
(2) Human beings, all States, and all public and private institutions must:
(a) act in accordance with the rights and obligations recognized in this Declaration;
(b) recognize and promote the full implementation and enforcement of the rights and obligations recognized in this Declaration;
(c) promote and participate in learning, analysis, interpretation and communication about how to live in harmony with Mother Earth in accordance with this Declaration;
(d) ensure that the pursuit of human wellbeing contributes to the wellbeing of Mother Earth, now and in the future;
(e) establish and apply effective norms and laws for the defence, protection and conservation of the rights of Mother Earth;
(f) respect, protect, conserve and where necessary, restore the integrity, of the vital ecological cycles, processes and balances of Mother Earth;
(g) guarantee that the damages caused by human violations of the inherent rights recognized in this Declaration are rectified and that those responsible are held accountable for restoring the integrity and health of Mother Earth;
(h) empower human beings and institutions to defend the rights of Mother Earth and of all beings;
(i) establish precautionary and restrictive measures to prevent human activities from causing species extinction, the destruction of ecosystems or the disruption of ecological cycles;
(j) guarantee peace and eliminate nuclear, chemical and biological weapons;
(k) promote and support practices of respect for Mother Earth and all beings, in accordance with their own cultures, traditions and customs;
(l) promote economic systems that are in harmony with Mother Earth and in accordance with the rights recognized in this Declaration.
Article 4. Definitions
(1) The term “being” includes ecosystems, natural communities, species and all other natural entities which exist as part of Mother Earth.
(2) Nothing in this Declaration restricts the recognition of other inherent rights of all beings or specified beings.
Sign up in any of four groups on Facebook. All are linked to the Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature. Also Canadian Youth Climate Coalition. See videos of Maude Barlow (Council of Canadians), Vandana Shiva (Earth Democracy), and Shannon Biggs (Global Exchange) on Democracy Now 22 May, and GRIT-TV 20 May.
No comments:
Post a Comment