by Emmanuel Schlichter
Imagine for a moment that Europe’s rivers could speak. They would tell stories of exploitation and resilience, of waters diverted and polluted under the mandates of human progress, yet still flowing persistently toward the sea. They might question why their fate is decided in parliaments and boardrooms where they have no voice. If rivers could speak, they would ask what democracy means when the very foundations of life – water, forests, land – remain voiceless and rightless. These questions echo across our continent today, urging us to reimagine democracy itself in the face of ecological crisis.
In the European imagination, democracy has long been about human voices and human rights. Yet as climate change and mass extinction accelerate, there is a growing recognition that our political systems must broaden their scope. The concept of Rights of Nature has emerged from a simple but radical insight: that rivers, mountains, forests, and ecosystems should hold rights, just as humans do. This idea invites a profound shift in legal and moral perspective – from viewing nature as property to recognizing Nature as a rights-bearing participant in our shared world. What was once a fringe notion is gaining ground as a necessary evolution of justice. It carries the seed of a more expansive democracy, one that includes the more-than-human world within its circle of concern.
Lessons from Global Pioneers: Rights of Nature in Practice
The Rights of Nature movement is not merely theoretical; it is rooted in global precedents and ancient wisdom. Indigenous communities have long treated rivers and lands as living relatives endowed with spirit and agency. Inspired by such perspectives, countries like Ecuador broke new ground by enshrining the rights of Pachamama (Mother Earth) in their constitution in 2008, explicitly recognizing the rights of ecosystems to exist and regenerate.[3] This constitutional innovation—the first of its kind—signaled a bold redefinition of whose voices matter in a democracy.
Since then, other nations have followed suit. Bolivia passed a Law of Mother Earth granting Nature legal rights, and New Zealand recognized the Whanganui River as a legal person, reflecting Māori cosmology. Even courts in countries like India and Colombia have affirmed rights for rivers and forests. Taken together, these cases across diverse cultures assert that Nature is not an object for exploitation but a subject of care and respect under the law.
Europe’s Awakening: From Mar Menor to a Continental Movement
Europe, however, has been slower to embrace this paradigm. For years, Rights of Nature remained an aspiration voiced by activists and scholars rather than a policy reality. But cracks in the old worldview are showing. In 2022, Spain witnessed a watershed moment when the Mar Menor, a beloved saltwater lagoon, became the first ecosystem in Europe to be granted legal personhood.[4] This achievement—born from a citizens’ campaign and solidified by a law passed in the Spanish Parliament—acknowledges the lagoon’s right to exist, flourish, and be restored. It empowers local residents and advocates to speak on the lagoon’s behalf in court, effectively giving the Mar Menor a voice in legal processes.
The significance of this precedent cannot be overstated. It demonstrates that European law can evolve to recognize Nature’s rights, providing a hopeful template for other regions and countries. Notably, the Mar Menor’s new status emerged only after ecological catastrophe struck (a mass die-off of marine life spurred public outcry). This underscores a tragic truth: societies often recognize the Rights of Nature only when the consequences of denying them become impossible to ignore.
A Radical Experiment: The European Citizens’ Initiative for the Rights of Nature
This brings us to a radical democratic experiment now unfolding at the transnational level: a European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI) for the Rights of Nature. The ECI is an EU instrument of direct democracy, enabling citizens across member states to jointly propose legislation if they gather enough support.
Today, environmentalists, jurists, community leaders, and ordinary citizens from many countries have come together to launch an ECI demanding that EU law recognize and implement the Rights of Nature. It is a call to transform Europe’s relationship with the natural world through the democratic process itself. By requiring one million signatures from at least seven EU countries, the campaign inherently fosters transnational solidarity — uniting people behind the idea that the European project must defend the living Earth we all share. In practice, the initiative seeks to establish a legal framework that would, for example, allow rivers or forests in Europe to be represented in courts and policy-making by appointed guardians, ensuring their protection and restoration as a matter of justice rather than charity.
At its heart, this initiative is about voice and community. Political theorist Hannah Arendt famously wrote about the importance of belonging to a political community, arguing that having rights is contingent on being recognized as part of the polity – the “right to have rights.”[1] In our current system, Nature has no such membership; a river is not a legal person and thus cannot have rights or recourse when it is harmed. The Rights of Nature initiative seeks to change that status quo.
“Democracy must grow to include the voiceless—rivers, forests, and all life that sustains us.”
Redefining Political Community: Nature as a Subject of Rights
It is, in essence, an invitation to extend our political community to include the voiceless – granting rivers, forests, and other ecosystems a rightful place in our legal and democratic order. By doing so, we acknowledge that our society is not limited to human beings alone, and that democracy can evolve to represent these voiceless constituents of our world upon whom our survival depends.
This vision requires not only legal changes but also a deep cultural shift. Environmental thinker Vandana Shiva speaks of “Earth Democracy,” a worldview in which humans and the rest of Nature are linked in an interdependent community of fate.[2] In this view, democracy is not just a matter of human governance; it is a way of living that respects the intrinsic value of all life. The call for Rights of Nature in Europe draws from this ethos.
It demands that we rethink fundamental concepts of ownership, stewardship, and the very meaning of rights. If a river has the right to flow and to be healthy, then human activities that pollute it or drain it dry are not merely unfortunate – they become violations of rights, injustices that the law can and should prevent. Recognizing such rights would foster a culture of care, where development plans and economic projects must account for the “voices” of rivers and forests as legitimate stakeholders.
Care as a Democratic Imperative: Emotion, Responsibility, and Survival
Critics may argue that granting Rights to Nature is a step too far – a poetic metaphor turned impractical law. Yet we should remember that rights are a human invention, tools we crafted to protect dignity, prevent harm, and enable coexistence. In the past, expanding the circle of rights was also seen as radical; the idea of universal human rights or rights for formerly disenfranchised groups was once dismissed as idealism. Over time, those expansions became moral common sense.
Extending Rights to Nature is a continuation of this democratic evolution. It challenges us to imagine a legal system in which the destruction of a forest is not only an environmental crime but also a violation against a member of the community – where the law safeguards ecosystems as essential to our collective well-being. Far from pitting human rights against Nature’s rights, this approach recognizes their unity: a poisoned river will eventually poison human communities too. A Europe that grants Rights to Nature is one that better protects human futures as well, creating legal duties for governments and corporations to prevent ecological harm at the source.
The democratic future of Europe may well depend on our ability to broaden our sense of “we.” In an age of fragmentation and global threats, the Rights of Nature initiative offers a vision of democracy that is both grounded and expansive. It is grounded in the tangible – soil, water, air, the non-negotiable foundations of life. But it is also expansive in imagination, daring to ask Europeans to see themselves not as masters of Nature but as partners within it.
This shift requires humility and hope, qualities sometimes in short supply in political discourse. Yet across the continent, movements for climate justice, for the defense of specific rivers or mountains, and for Indigenous rights are converging with the call for nature’s rights. They are injecting our democracy with new energy, reminding European institutions that citizens crave bold action commensurate with the ecological emergency.
“Extending Rights to Nature is a continuation of this democratic evolution.”
Building a Transnational Earth Democracy
Transnational by design, the Rights of Nature initiative is creating an unprecedented alliance. Activists in Poland reach out to allies in Portugal to share strategies on gathering signatures; legal experts in Germany draft provisions to apply across the EU; youth climate strikers in Sweden lend their passion to the cause of giving Lake Vänern or the Baltic Sea a voice. In connecting these dots, the campaign builds a European public beyond borders, united by a common recognition that ecological solidarity is the next step for our Union. Just as earlier generations of Europeans built a union to ensure peace and human rights after great tragedies, today’s citizens are beginning to construct a new pillar of that project: peace with the Earth, and rights for the Earth. It exemplifies the kind of Europe many wish to see – one that leads on ecological wisdom and responsibility.
As this initiative moves forward, it faces challenges – political inertia, corporate opposition, and the sheer novelty of its proposal. But it also rides a current of possibility that flows from the local to the continental level. City councils in places like Toledo, Ohio (which granted rights to Lake Erie) or regional parliaments in Italy (debating rights for the Po River) show that the idea resonates wherever people witness the fragility of their environment. The ECI’s campaign itself is a democratic exercise: a million conversations to gather a million signatures, each dialogue a chance to transform someone’s understanding of what law and democracy can be. In that sense, even before any law is passed, the process is already democratizing – it invites citizens to deliberate on the fundamental question of who (or what) our democracy is for.
Listening to the Voices of the more-than-human-world
Did you ever stand on the border of a wild river, streaming from the mountains to the sea, sensing its ever sparkling water flowing through all spheres of the planet, circling again and again the sea, the sky, the earth? Did you ever stand under an old tree, feeling its unique presence at that place, listening to the rustling of its leaves? Did you ever become aware, being watched by a wild bird? Maybe you felt touched by a person and felt a response. The more-than-human persons have always been there. We have to give up the feudalism in our relationship towards nature and accept the community of life. Rights of Nature reflect this by a community of rights.
It signals a Europe willing to lead by example, redefining progress as harmony between human societies and the living world. In doing so, it also revitalizes our democracy, reminding us that democracy is not a static system but a living project – one that must grow in scope and empathy to address the crises of its time.
Toward a Democracy that Embraces All Life
In the end, granting Rights to Nature is about imagining a future Europe where democracy protects the voiceless and the vulnerable, whether they walk on two legs, swim with fins, or stand rooted in soil. It is a future where the majestic silence of a river is understood as having meaning and merit in our courts and councils. Such a transformation requires courage and conviction. But as Europeans have learned through history, the courage to expand our circle of justice – to include those once excluded – is what keeps the democratic experiment alive. By standing in solidarity with rivers, mountains, and all our non-human kin, we affirm life itself as the foundation of our political community.
The voices of Nature are rising around us, whether in the roar of a storm or the hush of a dwindling forest. The democratic future of Europe will be determined by how we answer them. With the Rights of Nature initiative, we begin to answer not with despair, but with a resounding declaration that our rivers and forests are not alone – that in the halls of European democracy, their presence is welcome and their rights will be upheld. It is an act of hope, of responsibility, and ultimately of democracy in its purest sense: the widening of “we the people” to embrace all that lives.
Emmanuel Schlichter, LL.M. (Kent), is a fully qualified lawyer who studied law at LMU Munich and holds a Master’s degree in International Political Economy from the University of Kent. He applies his legal expertise in diverse and innovative ways to advance systemic, sustainable transformation. As the founder of Rechte der Natur e.V., he works to anchor the Rights of Nature in European law. He is also part of the team at GermanZero, where he focuses on climate policy reform and building pathways toward a just ecological transition.