Rights of Nature Legal Training

Rights of Nature: Theory, Law, and Emerging Jurisprudence

Legal Training

CDER is pleased to provide this 2.5 hour legal training on the rights of nature.  In addition, CDER is providing national continuing legal education (CLE) training on the rights of nature through Lawline and the National Academy of Continuing Legal Education.  

This course provides an introduction to the concept of creating legally enforceable rights of nature – an emerging area of environmental law which elevates environmental protection to a level comparable to human civil rights laws. This course examines the legal theory behind rights of nature laws and the anatomy of such laws that have been adopted by municipal governments across the United States. In addition, this course features case studies of the enforcement of rights of nature laws in the U.S., and of judicial and legal developments from around the world. The program concludes with a focus on the challenges of drafting and enforcing rights of nature laws in the U.S.

Part 1: Rights of Nature: Legal Theory

An overview of the indigenous origins of rights of nature theory, its emergence into Western law, an overview of several selected U.S. municipal rights of nature laws, and an overview of several tribal rights of nature laws. Led by CDER’s Senior Legal Counsel, Thomas Linzey.

 
 

Part 2: Anatomy of U.S. Rights of Nature Laws and Case Studies of Seminal Laws

Further exploring the reach of rights of nature laws by investigating the anatomy of these laws in the U.S., and examining enforcement of rights of nature laws in the U.S., including direct enforcement and efforts to intervene in existing cases. Led by attorney Daniel Brannen.

Part 3: International Jurisprudence and Laws

Examines enforcement cases in Ecuador, India, Colombia, and Bangladesh, and gives an overview of local and other laws adopted around the globe. Part three is presented by attorney Melissa Martin.

 
 

Part 4: Major Concepts and Panel Discussion

Nayeli Maxson Velazquez summarizes the major concepts presented in the earlier parts, and then facilitates a panel discussion that addresses municipal authority in the U.S. to adopt rights of nature laws, the role each governmental level in the U.S. can play in expanding rights of nature laws and jurisprudence, the role that the judiciary plays in recognizing and enforcing rights of nature, and what role attorneys can play in this emerging field of environmental law.

Biographies of Presenters:

Thomas Linzey serves as senior legal counsel for the Center for Democratic and Environmental Rights (CDER), a nonprofit organization committed to globally advancing environmental rights. He is widely recognized as the founder of the contemporary “community rights” and “rights of nature” movements, which have resulted in the adoption of several hundred municipal laws across the United States. In 2008, he assisted the Ecuadorian constitutional assembly to draft rights of nature provisions for the new Ecuadorian constitution, and his work has been featured in the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, Mother Jones, Forbes, and the Nation magazine. In 2018, Linzey was named as one of the top 400 environmentalists of the last 200 years.

Dan Brannen is a lawyer in private practice in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Since 2001 he has devoted much of his career to developing, litigating, and consulting on the legal bases for ending the constitutional rights of corporations and for securing fundamental rights of local self-government and nature. Dan currently works on such matters with the Center for Democratic and Environmental Rights (CDER) and the Virginia Network for Democracy and Environmental Rights (VNDER). Along with Thomas Linzey, he is co-author of “A Phoenix from the Ashes: Resurrecting a Constitutional Right of Local, Community Self-Government in the Name of Environmental Sustainability,” 8 Ariz. J. Envtl. L. & Pol’y 1 (2017). Dan studied law at George Washington University (J.D. 1993).

Melissa Martin, a Florida attorney currently living in Oregon, is a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy and served as a commissioned U.S. Marine Corps Officer, retiring as a Staff Judge Advocate in 2014. She earned her law degree from Barry University School of Law. Active in clean water advocacy and conservation, in 2016 Mel helped defeat a pro-fracking bill in Florida, and helped to lead a countywide coalition which successfully instituted a sales tax to support restoration projects for the Indian River Lagoon. She has also served as an Adjunct Law Professor, teaching Water Pollution Law and Environmental Ethics at Barry University. 

Nayeli Maxson Velazquez is a California attorney who served as the Executive Director and CEO of the Alliance for Community Development of the San Francisco Bay Area, a community organization founded to increase equitable access to capital for local, diverse entrepreneurs and visionaries.  She served as Vice Chair of the City of Oakland’s Ethics Commission, and earned her law degree at U.C. Hastings College of Law. She has worked for elected officials at the federal, state, and local levels, and recently served as the Regional Organizing Director for the Warren for President campaign.