Should rivers or other natural features be granted "rights" to protect them from environmental harms? Professor Jonathan Adler of Case Western Reserve University School of Law and Professor Noah Hall of Wayne Law debate whether nature rights can help settle the competing claims of humans over natural resources.

As always, the Federalist Society takes no position on particular legal or public policy issues; all expressions of opinion are those of the speaker.

Follow Jonathan Adler on Twitter: @jadler1969
https://twitter.com/jadler1969

Learn more about Jonathan Adler:
https://law.case.edu/Our-School/Faculty-Staff/Meet-Our-Faculty/Faculty-Detail/id/83

Follow Noah Hall on Twitter: @lakeslaw
https://twitter.com/lakeslaw

Learn more about Noah Hall:
https://law.wayne.edu/profile/ay2320

 

Related Links:

Property in Ecology
https://www.perc.org/2019/05/17/property-in-ecology/

Toward a New Horizontal Federalism: Interstate Water Management in the Great Lakes Region
https://www.greatlakeslaw.org/blog/files/Hall_Colorado.pdf

Conservative Principles for Environmental Reform
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2234464

 

Differing Views:

Should Rivers Have Rights? A Growing Movement Says It’s About Time
https://e360.yale.edu/features/should-rivers-have-rights-a-growing-movement-says-its-about-time

Toledo, Ohio, Just Granted Lake Erie the Same Legal Rights as People
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/toledo-ohio-just-granted-lake-erie-same-legal-rights-people-180971603/

Corporations Have Rights. Why Shouldn’t Rivers?
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/26/us/does-the-colorado-river-have-rights-a-lawsuit-seeks-to-declare-it-a-person.html

Rights of Nature: Why it Might Not Save the Entire World
https://www.iucn.org/news/world-commission-environmental-law/201905/rights-nature-why-it-might-not-save-entire-world