Markus G. Puder (Loyola University New Orleans College of Law) has posted Convivencia of the Third Kind: The Rise of Rights of Nature and Life Balance Under the Cupola Called Earth (40 J. Envtl. L. & Litig. 85 (2025)) on SSRN. Here is the abstract:
Convivencia – a term that translates to “living together” – is a concept that legal scholars have applied to the effort to develop a cosmopolitan jurisprudence that transcends the envelope of the nation state in the pursuit of ensuring humanity’s survival.
This article applies the concept of Convivencia to the debate about Rights of Nature when it comes to the future of our common home. Recognizing that nature is the indispensable enabler of life on the planet, the conferral of subjective rights upon nature at large or specific ecosystems promises a new jurisprudential paradigm for the protection, conservation, and recovery of all life systems. According to Rights of Nature advocates, the primacy of anthropocentrism—which sees nature merely as the object of human exploitation for the benefit of humanity’s economic development and technological progress—is woefully outdated when it comes to confronting the interlocking planetary crises embodied by climate change and species loss. These voices therefore urge jurisdictions across the world to shift the focus from human-nature binaries toward a more eco-centric world picture—one that has been associated with nature-rich locales and indigenous peoples’ spiritual concepts about the universe.
While Rights of Nature have offered tailored solutions for specific locations and particular communities across the world, these rights may not necessarily be a good fit for Western liberal democracies with human rights and the dignity of human nature at their core. This conclusion is based not only on foundational philosophical theories undergirding the rise of subjective rights but also the availability of protective vehicles already in place.