ELC works to implement reforms all over the world, advancing ecocentric law in partnership with advocates for human rights and indigenous rights.
Convention on Biological Diversity
Earth Law Center (ELC) and partners worked for three years to advance the Rights of Nature or Rights of Mother Earth in the Convention on Biological Diversity, the global treaty to protect biodiversity.
In December 2022, negotiators from across the world adopted a landmark global biodiversity agreement marking the first international agreement to explicitly promote “rights of nature” and “rights of Mother Earth.” The breakthrough came as nearly 200 countries completed their negotiations at COP15, the United Nations Biodiversity Conference aimed at creating a plan to protect and restore biodiversity through 2030.
The outcome document, called the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, adopts 23 conservation targets as well as guidance for implementation. The framework highlights rights-based protections for Nature in several sections.
For example, the framework “recognizes and considers … diverse value systems and concepts, including, for those countries that recognize them, rights of nature and rights of Mother Earth, as being an integral part of its successful implementation” (Section C(9), emphasis added).
Additionally, the framework calls for at least $200 billion by 2030 to implement national biodiversity strategies and action plans, including “Mother Earth centric actions” that are defined to include ecocentric and rights based approaches that promote the continuity of all living beings and their communities (Target 19, emphasis added).
On the other hand, the same Framework advances a false narrative that further commodifying biodiversity will solve the global biodiversity crisis. There is much more work to be done.
Nonetheless, Earth Law Center is extremely proud to have worked on this campaign with many incredible partners, including Rights of Mother Earth, End Ecocide Sweden, Keystone Species Alliance, Earth Advocacy Youth, and the Ovservatoire International Des Droits de la Nature.
