Nature’s Rights

Around the world, parliaments, governments and courts are granting more and more rights to nature. What is the impact of giving rights to nature? Can this legal practice contribute to addressing climate change? How can such rights be justified? And how can they be utilised?

In this fundamental philosophical work, Tilo Wesche explores these questions with a view to property rights. When it comes to the protection of climate, species and environment, property rights are often neglected. Yet they themselves harbour an idea of ecological sustainability that can contribute to overcoming an extractive relationship with nature.

»Wesche delivers … a comprehensive clarification of the concepts, and in doing so, lays important foundations for the ongoing debates. He has a clear standpoint: for him, nature being afforded rights is an indispensable element in a global strategy for attaining ecological sustainability.« Thomas Ribi, Neue Zürcher Zeitung

»What is original about this keenly conceived philosophical study is that its objective is not to give nature back its rights, but rather departs from the current crisis, from the main gateway to the crisis factors of climate change, species extinction, the exhaustion of resources and global pollution: the sacrosanct concept of property.« Joseph Hanimann, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung