UDTR Legal Library

UDTR Global Radar

UDTR Global Rights of Nature Radar

Documentary registry of records detected across the scholarly, legal and institutional infrastructures monitored by UDTR.

A global documentary infrastructure designed to achieve the broadest verifiable and scientifically defensible coverage of the Rights of Nature.

← Back to Radar

Rivers as living beings: rights in law, but no rights to water?

Identification

Public canonical key
doi:10.1080/10383441.2020.1881304
Authors
Erin O’Donnell
Reported year
2021
Reported language
en
Source type
Article
First detected
2026-11-09T19:04:47.830165+00:00
Last metadata observation
2026-11-09T19:04:47.830165+00:00
Last HTTP verification
Not checked

Institutions reported by the source

The University of Melbourne

Reported affiliation countries

AU

Documentary abstract — original language

Since 2017, some of the most beloved and iconic rivers in the world have been recognised in law as legal persons and/or living entities, with a range of legal rights and protections. These profound legal changes can transform the relationship between people and rivers, and are the result of ongoing leadership from Indigenous peoples and environmental advocates. This paper uses a comparative analysis of the legal and/or living personhood of rivers and lakes in Aotearoa New Zealand, India, Bangladesh, Colombia to identify the legal status of specific rivers, and highlight the disturbing trend of recognising rivers as legal persons and/or living entities whilst also denying rivers the right to flow. Rather than empowering rivers in law to resist existential threats, the new legal status of rivers may thus make it even more difficult to manage rivers to prevent their degradation and loss. This paper highlights an ‘extinction problem’ for rivers that environmental law has exacerbated, by recognising new non-human living beings whilst simultaneously denying them some of the specific legal rights they need to remain in existence. The paper also shows how a pluralist analysis of the status of rivers can help to identify some potential ways to address this problem.

Identifiers

DOI
10.1080/10383441.2020.1881304

Documentary context

Documentary family
Scholarship
Source-reported types
Article
Jurisdictions studied — explicit sources
INT
Source jurisdiction labels
International
Publishers
Taylor & Francis
Natural entities mentioned
River · Lake

Entity mentions are not evidence of legal recognition. Jurisdiction studied is separate from author affiliation country.

Sources

OpenAlex · Record 1 · Record 2

Publisher / institutional publication record · Record 1

Documented bibliographic relations

Source-declared references and links; they do not establish legal support or UGLC qualification. Up to 20 outgoing references are displayed.

5 incoming references within the detected corpus

Documentary field provenance

Source-backed values and values with unresolved provenance are kept separately. Bibliographic provenance validates no legal claim.

Title
Documentary source reported
Publication
Documentary source reported
Authors
Documentary source reported
Document type
Documentary source reported
Jurisdiction
Studied subject derived from explicit documentary context
Court
Not recorded
Issuing authority
Not recorded
Publisher
Documentary source reported
DOI
Documentary source reported
ISBN
Not recorded
Official identifier
Not recorded
Source URL
Documentary source reported
Source-reported status
Not recorded
Amendment / repeal
Not recorded

Cite this reference

Erin O’Donnell. Rivers as living beings: rights in law, but no rights to water?. 2021. https://doi.org/10.1080/10383441.2020.1881304

JSON · CSL-JSON · BibTeX · RIS · CSV · JSON-LD ·

APA, Chicago, ISO 690: bibliographic formats using available fields. OSCOLA / Bluebook: structured data only; full legal citation compliance is not claimed without verification of required elements.

APA
Erin O’Donnell. (2021). Rivers as living beings: rights in law, but no rights to water?. https://doi.org/10.1080/10383441.2020.1881304
Chicago
Erin O’Donnell. Rivers as living beings: rights in law, but no rights to water?. 2021. https://doi.org/10.1080/10383441.2020.1881304
ISO 690
Erin O’Donnell. Rivers as living beings: rights in law, but no rights to water?. 2021. https://doi.org/10.1080/10383441.2020.1881304

UDTR Global Rights of Nature Legal Library. Rivers as living beings: rights in law, but no rights to water?. Documentary record: https://www.declarationuniverselledesdroitsdelarbre.org/global-rights-of-nature-radar/reference/r-1b0fb41a7a32ee9129a09ca9b22d7b76/ · Last HTTP verification: not performed

Report a correction

Field provenance and record version

Version baad1e68c15d57e8 · udtr-reference-1.1.2

Title
Historical documentary evidence · source · 2026-11-07
OpenAlex · source · 2026-11-09T19:04:47.830165+00:00
Authors
OpenAlex · source · 2026-11-09T19:04:47.830165+00:00
Year
OpenAlex · source · 2026-11-09T19:04:47.830165+00:00
Jurisdiction
OpenAlex · source · 2026-11-09T19:04:47.830165+00:00
Identifiers
OpenAlex · source · 2026-11-09T19:04:47.830165+00:00
Source URL
Historical documentary evidence · source · 2026-11-07
OpenAlex · source · 2026-11-09T19:04:47.830165+00:00

History tracks record metadata and does not certify the state of the law.

8a05d02e337fde6c · 2026-11-09T19:04:47.830165+00:00

c9edd25a0cbb1c44 · 2026-11-09T19:04:47.830165+00:00

3f1e090c4675a3eb · 2026-11-09T19:04:47.830165+00:00

baad1e68c15d57e8 · 2026-11-09T19:04:47.830165+00:00

Frozen-version metadata

Research dossiers and documentary relations

INT ·

The University of Melbourne

Erin O’Donnell

Source roles

Discovery source · https://doi.org/10.1080/10383441.2020.1881304

Discovery source · https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10383441.2020.1881304

An authority link alone does not verify a legal claim. Abstracts and full texts remain subject to their source terms.

Documentary status

Documentary validated

Library

View in the Legal Library →

UDTR Global Rights of Nature Legal Library