In the midst of deep ecological and human crises, endangering life on earth, there are multiple responses trying to re-establish peace and harmony with the rest of nature. But this also requires fundamental transformations in economic, political, and socio-cultural paradigms, away from statist, capitalist, patriarchal, racist and anthropocentric approaches to more earth-centred, equitable, just ones. The 'rights of nature' movement is one element of this, but also needs to go beyond a narrow legalistic approach to the wider worldviews of being part of and mutually interdependent with nature. Presentation by Shrishtee Bajpai and I to Tata Institute of Social Sciences, 2 April 2022.

1. Confidential Customized for Lorem Ipsum LLC Version 1.0
Rights of Nature
and Beyond
Shrishtee Bajpai and Ashish Kothari (Kalpavriksh)

2. Crises of Environmental governance in India
Five major issues
1. Colonial legacy
2. Regulatory Failure (centralised decision
making, lack of real democracy)
3. Neo-liberal growth model
4. Limits to judicial activism
5. Assumption that conservation is
environmentalism

3. What this has resulted into…..
● Diversion of natural ecosystems like forests (mining, dams), coasts (aquaculture, ports) …
● 50 percent of all species will face extinction by the end of the century (globally).
● In India, over 12% wild mammals and 3% bird species face extinction
● India has 45 critically polluted river stretches
● One-third of India’s wetlands lost in the past four decades.
● Earth facing its sixth mass extinction, 1st one driven by human industrialisation and consumption.
● Environmental destruction = livelihood, cultural, and physical displacement…for tens of millions
of people

4. 1970s and 1980s:
increase in people’s movements and NGOs (Chipko, Silent Valley, Narmada, Jungle
Bachao Manav Bachao, fishworkers…)
significant policy measures for the environment (Constitutional provisions, several Acts on
wildlife/pollution/environment, Forest Policy, Dept/Ministry for Environment)

5. Crises of rivers in India
● Pollution
● Damming/diversions
● River interlinking projects
● Sand mining
● Privatisation of rivers
● Riverine conflicts between neighbouring countries – Kali River andTeesta
● Climate change, encroachments
● Underlying Inequalities

6. Background
● Current laws and policies are used as means to sanction env. destruction
● The ecological crises are demanding us to fundamentally rethink our dominant
systems
● Signalling a shift from the extractive, colonial, and property-oriented mindset
● Rooting itself in indigenous and nature-dependent communities’ cosmologies and
worldviews – Lepchas, Iwi, Sioux Tribe, Indian adivasis, and many others
(reciprocity, interdependence, relational, pluriversal)

7. That humans are part of rest of
nature. Nature is alive and
thriving. Healthy, interconnected
web of life on Earth.

8. Worldviews

9. Rights of Nature around the world
1. Earth-Centered Governance
2. ConstitutionalApproach
3. Indigenous/ RelationalApproach
4. JudicialApproach

10. World-wide movement
1. Ecuador: Rights of Nature in the constitution, Vilcabamba River
2. US: Rights of nature ordinances
3. Bolivia: Legislative assembly passed Law of the Rights of Pachamama
4. Colombia: Bio-cultural rights of River Atrato,
5. Rights of Amazon region: Rights of Future Generations
6. The Ho-Chunk Nation took a first vote for a rights of nature tribal constitutional
amendment, the first tribal nation in the U.S. to do so.
7. New-Zealand: Te Urewera (National Park), Te Awa Tupua Act
8. Rights of Magpie river in Quebec, Canada
9. Rights of Wild Rice by Minnesota Chippewa Tribe, Rights of Moon
10. Recently, Chile Constitutional Convention formally approved the Rights of Nature

11. What Happened in India?
1
2017: UHC order says “Rivers,
Forests, Lakes, Water Bodies, Air,
Glaciers and Springs have a right to
exist, persist, maintain, sustain and
regenerate their own vital ecological
system. The rivers are not just water
bodies. These are scientifically and
biologically living.
2
3
In 2018, the same high
court ruled that the entire animal
kingdom has rights equivalent to that
of a living person.
IN March 2020, the Punjab and
Haryana High Court passed an
order declaring the Sukhna Lake in
Chandigarh city as a living entity,
also with rights equivalent to that of
a person.

12. Provisions in the Indian Constitution
● Directive Principles: the State shall endeavour to protect and
improve the environment and to safeguard the forests and wild life
of the country.”
● Fundamental Duties [through Article 51A (g)], “to protect and
improve the natural environment including forests, lakes, rivers
and wildlife, and to have compassion for living creatures.”
● The Apex Court of the land has repeatedly asserted the
importance of preserving our environment and natural resources
echoing the need of ecological consciousness in society, which is
clearly reflected in the sensitivity of honourable judges of various
courts.

13. Points to consider
● Rivers as a ‘Legal Person’- injury can
be recognised, have the right to sue,
and can be sued
● Have the rights and liabilities like a
living person- what will be those rights?
how do we define those? Who will be
included in it?
● Considered a ‘minor’ – appointed
‘state’ guardians- role of local
communities?
● In case of violation of rights: what is
violation? What will be
compensation/restitution? in what
form? To whom?

14. Other concerns
● Governance Mechanisms –especially for
transboundary rivers and other
ecosystems?
● Potential of misuse- restricting the rights of
dependent communities, offering technical
fixes, and right-wing politics
● No grassroots movement

15. What is a river?
River is a civilisation that includes
aquatic flora and fauna, the biodiversity
in its catchment areas, forests, its
tributaries, groundwater, the rocks and
soil in its bed and banks, and the human
communities immediately dependent on
it.

16. What are rights?
The rights of rivers in that sense would mean that the
ecological causes and conditions making up the natural
habitat are to be protected to maintain a river’s identity
and integrity. This does not put an end to fishing or
other localised, subsistence-based human needs.
● Right to flow (unhindered), meander,
and to flood in its floodplains.
● Right to have the soil and groundwater
flow.
● Right of the river should include the
rights of all that determine the health
of the river.
● Right to all the aquatic flora and fauna.
Hence, the species in the river, basin,
catchment areas, and forests near the
river etc.
● River has a right to sing
● The river has a right to behna, khelna
and khelana (flow, to play and to feed)

17. Duties?
The duties of the rivers will be defined
based on their intrinsic nature. Hence,
natural duties corresponding to the (entity
specific) natural rights … and in fact can
be said that since they have natural duties,
they need to have rights.

18. Implementation
1. democratic system of
custodianship
2. consultative processes at
various levels and involve
multiple set of actors
3. Custodianship or guardianship:a
multi-scale or nested
institutional framework

19. Define “Violations”
Violation of the rights of rivers’ should be defined as ‘any obstruction or
impediment that disables the entity from performing its essential
ecological functions’. This includes, but is not limited to, any violation of
the rights mentioned earlier.

20. Questioning the roots of crises
a. Development-growth model
b. Political Governance
c. Legal framework
d. Going beyond rights-framework

21. ● People’s movements against dams, mining, pollution, over-
fishing, SEZs…. these are sustainability, human rights and
justice movements, not anti-national!
Resistance to destructive
development…
Protest against dams on Indravati, 1980s

22. Confidential Customized for Lorem Ipsum LLC Version 1.0
India: alternative initiatives for well-being
Water
Crafts
Shelter
Food
Energy
Governance
Livelihoods
Conservation
Village
revitalisation
Urban sustainability
Learning
Health
Producer
companies
Inclusion
Sexuality
Gender

23. Vikalp Sangams (Alternatives Confluences):
practical collaborations, bottom-up visioning

24. www.vikalpsangam.org
>1500 stories of positive transformation …

25. Ecological resilience &
wisdom
(rights of nature, conservation)
Radical democracy
(direct citizens’ power, accountable
representative institutions,
borderless world)
Economic democracy
(producer sovereignty, localised
self-reliance, caring/sharing,
commons)
Social justice & wellbeing
(justice, equity of genders, ethnicities,
castes …)
Culture & knowledge
diversity
(new learning, knowledge
commons, celebrating
creativity)
Towards a just, sustainable, equitable society
5 interconnected, integrated spheres
VALUES

26. RADICAL POLITICS & ECONOMICS
Direct democracy (local to national): power & economic production & commons
in hands of people: gram sabhas, urban area sabhas, adivasi assemblies, etc
Localisation of economy, self-reliance (with struggles of justice & equality …
gender, caste etc)
Economy of caring & sharing, qualitative indicators of well-being beyond
growth and GDP
Bioregional governance across states and countries … political units aligned
with ecological and cultural ones? Borderless world?

27. Renewed Relationship with Nature

28. What’s ahead of
us?
● Awareness , campaigning, and advocacy and
decolonisation
● Legal and policy strategies further rights of
rivers in South Asia
● Using international law (CBD, Convention on
Migratory Species, Ramsar Convention, etc)
for legal rights of rivers
● Relationship of customary/traditional law with
any such law on rights of rivers need to studied
more.
● Groundwork for rights : education,
cultural/religious, media
● Reimagining governance from ecological point
of view- eco-regions or bio-regions
● Supporting local processes of lake revival and
river protection

29. 1. Rights of Rivers
South Asia
2. Global Alliance
for the rights of
nature (and its
Youth Hub)
3. Earth Law
Centre

30. Thank you
shrishteebajpai@gmail.com
ashishkothari@riseup.net