Blessed Trees and the Rights of Rivers

The intersection of environmental protections and human rights has become a critical point for advocacy and activism. It is difficult today to talk about human rights, without also discussing environmental justice, climate change, and the rights of nature. The reverse is also true. Around the world, activists, lawyers, and judges have begun developing new and creative methods for addressing this nexus of environmental justice and human rights, and, in the process, are working to reframe how we think about the human-nature relationship. Particularly when faced with legislative and executive branches of government reluctant to promote and protect broad-scale environmental policies and address human rights-related impacts, creative legal arguments, drawing on different legal traditions, have become increasingly important as a bulwark against over-development of natural resources, issues of environmental justice, and encroachment on culturally and environmentally significant lands.