Mari Margil
Executive Director
United States
Mari Margil is the Executive Director of the Center for Democratic and Environmental Rights (CDER).
She works with civil society, governments, as well as Tribal Nations and Indigenous communities in the U.S., Ecuador, the Philippines, Nepal, and elsewhere, to advance Rights of Nature frameworks. She consulted with Ecuador’s Constituent Assembly, helping to draft the world’s first Rights of Nature constitutional provisions in 2008.
Margil received her Master’s degree from Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, and is a co-author of The Bottom Line or Public Health (Oxford University Press 2010), Exploring Wild Law: The Philosophy of Earth Jurisprudence (Wakefield Press 2011), and Bearing Witness: The Human Rights Case Against Fracking and Climate Change (Oregon State University Press 2021).
Her writing has also been featured in publications including The Guardian, YES! Magazine, Earth Island Journal, Mongabay, Democracy Journal, World Policy Journal, and Common Dreams, and her work has been featured in the New York Times, The New Yorker, and elsewhere.
Mari Margil serves as the Executive Director of the Center for Democratic and Environmental Rights and program manager for CDER’s International Center for the Rights of Nature. Margil previously served as the Associate Director of the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF). In 2008, she served as a consultant to Ecuador’s national Constituent Assembly, helping to draft the world’s first Rights of Nature constitutional provisions. Margil is widely viewed as one of the leading global voices for the recognition of legally enforceable rights of ecosystems and nature.
In her role with CDER, Margil works with national, state, and local governments, tribal nations, and indigenous communities in Australia, Sweden, the Philippines, Nepal, and elsewhere, to advance legal and policy frameworks regarding Rights of Nature. She has served as the primary drafter of a “Himalayas Bill of Rights” (Nepal) and other groundbreaking legislation.
Margil has presented at conferences around the world, including the Bioneers Conference (California), as well as in Bolivia, Ecuador, Canada, Ireland, Northern Ireland, Italy, Sweden, Australia, and Nepal. Her writing has been featured in The Guardian, YES! Magazine, Earth Island Journal, Democracy Journal, World Policy Journal, In These Times, and Common Dreams.
Margil received her Master’s degree from Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government and is a co-author of The Bottom Line or Public Health (Oxford University Press 2010), Exploring Wild Law: The Philosophy of Earth Jurisprudence (Wakefield Press 2011), and Bearing Witness: The Human Rights Case Against Fracking and Climate Change (Oregon State University Press 2021). She was a co-host of Democracy Matters, a syndicated public affairs radio show broadcast from KYRS in Spokane, Washington.
