Press Release: Inter-American Court of Human Rights Recognizes Importance of Rights of Nature in Face of “Triple Planetary Crisis”
CDER Submission to the Court Focused on the Need to Protect the Rights of Nature to Address Environmental Crises
Advisory Opinion: The rights of nature provides “effective legal tools…to prevent existential damage before it becomes irreversible”
Advisory Opinion: The rights of nature “makes it possible to overcome inherited legal concepts that conceived of nature exclusively as an object of property or an exploitable resource”
July 4, 2025
Contact:
Hugo Echeverría, External Attorney, Center for Democratic and Environmental Rights, Ecuador, hugo.echeverria@mail.mcgill.ca
Mari Margil, Executive Director, Center for Democratic and Environmental Rights, mmargil@centerforenvironmentalrights.org
On July 3, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights issued an historic Advisory Opinion, emphasizing the importance of protecting the rights of nature in law to address climate change and other environmental crises. The Advisory Opinion echoes key arguments that the Center for Democratic and Environmental Rights (CDER) submitted to the Court in a written submission and a public hearing held in Barbados in 2024.
The Court explained that:
· Moving toward a paradigm that recognizes ecosystems' rights is essential for protecting their long-term integrity and functionality and provides coherent and effective legal tools in the face of the triple planetary crisis to prevent existential damage before it becomes irreversible. (Section 279)
· “This recognition (of the rights of nature) makes it possible to overcome inherited legal concepts that conceived of nature exclusively as an object of property or an exploitable resource.” (Section 280)
· “Recognizing nature as a subject of rights also implies making visible its structural role in the vital balance of the conditions that make the planet's habitability possible.” (Section 280)
· “This approach strengthens a paradigm centered on the protection of the ecological conditions essential for life and empowers local communities and indigenous peoples, who have historically been guardians of ecosystems and possess profound traditional knowledge of their functioning.” (Section 280)
Based upon these considerations, the Court concluded that:
· “States not only must refrain from acting in ways that cause significant environmental harm, but they also have a positive obligation to adopt measures to ensure the protection, restoration, and regeneration of ecosystems. These measures must be consistent with the best available science and recognize the value of traditional, local, and indigenous knowledge. Furthermore, they must be guided by the principle of non-regression and ensure the full realization of procedural rights.” (Section 283)
The Court also acknowledged efforts made on the international level to promote an inclusive perspective in the protection of nature, quoting the 1982 World Charter for Nature, the most recent Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, as well as a set of fifteen resolutions and thirteen reports of the United Nations General Assembly reflecting on the growing recognition of the rights of nature, worldwide (Sections 283 and 285).
Finally, the Court noted the growing normative and jurisprudential trend that recognizes nature as a subject of rights:
· “This trend is reflected in judicial decisions at the regional and global levels, as well as in the internal regulations of different countries on the American continent, such as Canada, Ecuador, in some states of the United States of America, Bolivia, Brasil, Mexico, Panama and Peru.” (Section 286)
The Court decided:
“The recognition of Nature and its components as subjects of rights constitutes a regulatory development that enhances the protection of the integrity and functionality of ecosystems in the long term, providing effective legal tools against the triple planetary crisis and facilitating the prevention of existential damage before it becomes irreversible. This conception represents a contemporary manifestation of the principle of interdependence between human rights and the environment, and reflects a growing international trend aimed at strengthening the protection of ecological systems against present and future threats.”
Background
In 2023, Colombia and Chile submitted a request to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights requesting an advisory opinion “to clarify the scope of State obligations…to respond to the climate emergency within the framework of international human rights law…as well as on nature and on human survival on our planet.”
The Court agreed to provide an advisory opinion on this question and invited written submissions from civil society. CDER provided the following input to the Court:
- Written submission: Available here in Spanish and English - submitted in December 2023
- Public hearing: CDER’s Hugo Echeverría spoke before the Court in April 2024
The Advisory Opinion echoes CDER’s arguments that protecting the legal rights of nature is essential for protecting nature – particularly in the face of climate change and other environmental crises – and the human right to a healthy environment. Further, the Court explains – as CDER did in our submitted arguments – that traditional environmental laws treat nature as property, with these laws merely regulating the use and exploitation of nature. The need to move to a new paradigm, to “prevent existential damage becomes irreversible” as the Court wrote, is clear.
Hugo Echeverría, External Attorney for CDER based in Quito, stated, “The Inter-American Court of Human Rights made clear that protecting the rights of nature in law is essential to address today’s environmental crises.” He added, “The Court affirmed today that the rights of nature is a necessary legal framework.”
Mari Margil, CDER Executive Director, stated “The Inter-American Court of Human Rights explained that protecting the legal rights of nature is key to protecting the planet’s very habitability.” Margil added, “The rights of nature represent a fundamental shift in humankind’s relationship with nature, from one of exploitation to one of protection, which the Court indicated was essential in the face of the triple environmental crisis.”
At the 2024 Public Hearing, Echeverría highlighted the importance for a Human Rights Court to address the rights of nature. He explained that at the hearing, “The Center for Democratic and Environmental Rights discussed with the justices the need to protect the rights of nature to address climate change. The Court’s Advisory Opinion strengthens the juridical content of the rights of nature.”
Other courts with regional and international jurisdiction are addressing the challenges of climate change, but the Inter-American Court is the only one including the rights of nature. This is a major contribution aimed at synergy between human rights and the rights of Nature.
CDER Submission to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights
CDER’s submission provided a unique perspective to the Inter-American Court, emphasizing that the protection of the human right to a healthy environment requires that we move beyond traditional human-centric environmental laws, which have proven inadequate to address environmental crises, and of the need to protect the rights of nature.
In our submission, we described how the human right to a healthy environment and the rights of nature are distinct rights. CDER’s founders consulted on the drafting of Ecuador’s rights of nature constitutional provisions. Based upon the Ecuadorian model, we explained that these rights are complementary, and that addressing the climate emergency and human rights, will require protecting and guaranteeing both sets of rights.
Facing overlapping environmental crises, such as climate change, species extinction, and ecosystem collapse, a growing number of countries in the Americas – including Ecuador, Panama, and Bolivia – are protecting both the human right to a healthy environment and the rights of nature in law.
Our focus within our written inputs and participation before the Court focused on the need to protect the rights of nature. Specifically, on the necessity for governments considering not only the need to protect the human right to a healthy environment in response to the climate change emergency, but also the need to protect the rights of the environment itself to be healthy.
CDER and the Rights of Nature
CDER's founders have worked on the first rights of nature laws in the world - including Ecuador's rights of nature constitutional provisions. Ecuador enshrined the constitutional human right to a healthy environment in 1983, and the rights of the environment (nature) within the constitution in 2008.
The rights of nature is a movement that has established constitutional provisions (Ecuador) and national and local laws and court rulings across the globe, including in Latin America, North America, Europe, Asia, and Africa. Tribal and First Nations have protected the rights of nature in their Indigenous legal frameworks as well.
Legal rights include the rights of nature to exist, thrive, evolve, regenerate, and be restored. Legal rights are the highest form of legal protection that exists in human written law.
Background on the Inter-American Court of Human Rights
The American Convention on Human Rights came into force in 1978. It is an international treaty with parties to the treaty largely being countries in Latin America. The American Convention establishes obligations of member-states to respect the rights and liberties of the Convention, which include rights to privacy, equal protection, and freedom of religion, as well as the “progressive development of economic, social, and cultural rights.” Further, the American Convention established the Inter-American Court to “interpret and apply the American Convention.”
The impact of the Inter-American Court's Advisory Opinions is significant to set standards for application and interpretation of human rights recognized in the constitutions of the countries where the Court has jurisdiction. In the case of Ecuador, to date the only country recognizing the rights of nature in its constitution, this Advisory Opinion contributes to strengthening its development and application.
To learn more about the rights of nature, including rights of nature laws, court rulings, and enforcement efforts around the world, visit CDER’s website: centerforenvironmentalrights.org.
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