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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.

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The Puzzling Persistence of Nature's Rights

Identification

Public canonical key
doi:10.2139/ssrn.4996393
Authors
Sam
Reported year
2024
Reported language
en · und
Source type
Article
First detected
2026-11-09T19:04:47.556747+00:00
Last metadata observation
2026-11-10T16:58:50.985956+00:00
Last HTTP verification
Not checked

Institutions reported by the source

Harvard University

Reported affiliation countries

US

Documentary abstract — original language

The American experience of rights of Nature—the legal recognition of the rights and personhood of natural phenomena—presents a puzzle. On the one hand, no court has ever recognized such rights. Rights of Nature laws are routinely struck down and have proven impossible to enforce. On the other hand, dozens of communities, including municipalities and Native American tribes, continue to enforce them while scholars debate them endlessly. Why do rights of Nature persist? Through analysis of 119 laws and 32 interviews with rights of Nature activists, I offer the first empirically-grounded answer to this question. Rights of Nature persist because of their value as political resources in legal mobilization, trading on deeply held myths embedded in American legal culture. Most rights of Nature activists have specific, local environmental objectives, and hope to use Nature’s rights to block development, assert local power, and build a movement. Sometimes, they succeed. Litigation plays an important role in pursuing these objectives, even though advocates rarely expect to win. Like many other rights, the rights of Nature are best conceived of as movement resources rather than a formal litigation strategy. Nevertheless, the movement finds itself at a crossroads. It can remain a primarily negative movement, offering a framework for opposing development projects or critiquing environmental law. Or it can evolve into an alternative and concrete paradigm for environmental governance. The tension between these two objectives is the key challenge facing the rights of Nature movement.

Identifiers

DOI
10.2139/ssrn.4996393 · 10.63140/r8drkuq64m
OPENALEX
W4411446072
OPENAIRE
doi_dedup___::7a71880682e79688504adf6b742898cf

Documentary context

Documentary family
Scholarship
Source-reported types
Article · article
Jurisdictions studied — explicit sources
US
Source jurisdiction labels
États-Unis
Publishers
Utah Law Review

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

Sources

OpenAIRE · Record 1

OpenAlex · Record 1 · Record 2 · Record 3

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
Documentary source reported
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

Sam. The Puzzling Persistence of Nature's Rights. 2024. https://www.declarationuniverselledesdroitsdelarbre.org/global-rights-of-nature-radar/reference/r-9b8e9bfa0ccf899d94db14e1bcf8db0f/

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
Sam. (2024). The Puzzling Persistence of Nature's Rights. https://www.declarationuniverselledesdroitsdelarbre.org/global-rights-of-nature-radar/reference/r-9b8e9bfa0ccf899d94db14e1bcf8db0f/
Chicago
Sam. The Puzzling Persistence of Nature's Rights. 2024. https://www.declarationuniverselledesdroitsdelarbre.org/global-rights-of-nature-radar/reference/r-9b8e9bfa0ccf899d94db14e1bcf8db0f/
ISO 690
Sam. The Puzzling Persistence of Nature's Rights. 2024. https://www.declarationuniverselledesdroitsdelarbre.org/global-rights-of-nature-radar/reference/r-9b8e9bfa0ccf899d94db14e1bcf8db0f/

UDTR Global Rights of Nature Legal Library. The Puzzling Persistence of Nature's Rights. Documentary record: https://www.declarationuniverselledesdroitsdelarbre.org/global-rights-of-nature-radar/reference/r-9b8e9bfa0ccf899d94db14e1bcf8db0f/ · Last HTTP verification: not performed

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Field provenance and record version

Version d8b3f2b23f34ca1d · udtr-reference-1.1.2

Title
Historical documentary evidence · 2026-11-07
OpenAIRE · source · 2026-11-09T19:06:15.385742+00:00
Multiple reported values; disagreement retained.
Authors
OpenAIRE · source · 2026-11-09T19:06:15.385742+00:00
OpenAlex · 2026-11-09T19:04:47.556747+00:00
Multiple reported values; disagreement retained.
Year
OpenAIRE · source · 2026-11-09T19:06:15.385742+00:00
OpenAlex · 2026-11-09T19:04:47.556747+00:00
Multiple reported values; disagreement retained.
Jurisdiction
OpenAlex · 2026-11-09T19:04:47.556747+00:00
Identifiers
OpenAIRE · source · 2026-11-09T19:06:15.385742+00:00
OpenAlex · 2026-11-09T19:04:47.556747+00:00
Multiple reported values; disagreement retained.
Source URL
OpenAIRE · source · 2026-11-09T19:06:15.385742+00:00
OpenAlex · source · 2026-11-10T16:58:50.985956+00:00
Multiple reported values; disagreement retained.
Source-reported author ORCID
OpenAlex · source · 2026-11-10T16:58:50.985956+00:00

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

2d741c515c3a3f93 · 2026-11-09T19:10:39.027911+00:00

406ca4a6877a9b39 · 2026-11-09T19:10:39.027911+00:00

16d5a7b3b1468930 · 2026-11-09T19:10:39.027911+00:00

e15bced92c3c259a · 2026-11-10T16:58:50.985956+00:00

d8b3f2b23f34ca1d · 2026-11-10T16:58:50.985956+00:00

Frozen-version metadata

Research dossiers and documentary relations

US ·

Harvard University

Sam

Source roles

Discovery source · https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4996393

Discovery source · https://doi.org/10.63140/r8drkuq64m

Discovery source · https://openalex.org/W4411446072

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

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UDTR Global Rights of Nature Legal Library