PHILOSOPHY
If Animals Have Rights, can Nature Have Rights Too? OLIVIA LADA MOCZARKSI
Both humans and animals have legal protections to ensure their well-being; The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) enforces respect for human dignity and animal welfare legislation turns ethical calls to defend creatures into enforceable law. The purpose of rights is to protect the vulnerable and those negatively impacted by exploitation due to a moral duty, thus surely inanimate nature should have rights. The goal of the animal rights movement is to ‘[put] an end to exploitative industries’ thus the parallels between the exploitation and maltreatment of
animals and nature suggest that nature should also have rights. Nature is mistreated through pollution of the atmosphere, deforestation and water contamination. Amidst an environmental crisis, codified rights for nature may be the optimal solution. Some argue against nature’s rights due to its non-sentience, yet the nocuous impacts of exploitation, which also affect humans and animals, align closely with the protection of the defenceless that justifies animal rights.
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