UDTR Global Rights of Nature Radar

Signs of Invisibility: Nonrecognition of Natural Environments as Persons in International and Domestic Law

Identification

Public canonical key

doi:10.1007/s11196-022-09920-7

Authors

Bruce Baer Arnold

Reported year

2022

Reported language

en

Source type

article

First detected

2026-11-09T19:04:47.850661+00:00

Last metadata observation

2026-11-09T19:18:53.294345+00:00

Last HTTP verification

Not checked

Institutions reported by the source

University of Canberra

Reported affiliation countries

AU

Documentary abstract — original language

Abstract Recognition of legal personhood in contemporary international and domestic law is a matter of signs. Those signs identify the existence of the legal person: human animals, corporations and states. They also identify facets of that personhood that situate the signified entities within webs of rights and responsibilities. Entities that are not legal persons lack agency and are thus invisible. They may be acted on but, absent the personhood that is communicated through a range of indicia and shapes both legal and popular understanding of powers and obligations, they lack standing in judicial fora. They are signified as entities that are the subjects of action by legal persons, for example exploitation through rights regarding natural resources or commodification of ‘wild’, companion and other non-human animals. They are also signified as members of a diverse class of non-persons such as ‘nature’ and ‘the environment’. This article explores the consequences of law’s signification of personhood and the natural world before asking whether we both should and could recognise domains such as specific rivers, forests or even Antarctica as a type of legal person. Recognition might acknowledge the salience of nature in the ontologies of colonised First Peoples. It might also underpin a global response to climate change as the existential crisis of the Anthropocene. In understanding law as a matter of signifiers and syntaxes the article cautions that ostensible recognition of some domains as persons has been aspirational rather than substantive, with observers misreading the sign as necessarily transforming power relationships. The article also cautions that personhood for nature or particular domains may be contrary to the self-determination of colonised First Peoples.

Identifiers

DOI

10.1007/s11196-022-09920-7

OPENALEX

W4283826750

Documentary context

Documentary family

Scholarship

Source-reported types

article

Natural entities mentioned

River · Forest

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

Sources

OpenAlex · Record 1 · Record 2

• DOI · https://doi.org/10.1007/s11196-022-09920-7
• OpenAlex · https://openalex.org/W4283826750

Documented bibliographic relations

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

• openalex:w111386726 · CITES
• openalex:w1501298543 · CITES
• Should Trees Have Standing? Toward Legal Rights for Natural Objects · CITES
• Drawing the line: science and the case for animal rights · CITES
• openalex:w1538759166 · CITES
• openalex:w1542356730 · CITES
• openalex:w1557385649 · CITES
• openalex:w1557750365 · CITES
• openalex:w1570404399 · CITES
• openalex:w1574004510 · CITES
• openalex:w1598025918 · CITES
• openalex:w1966877007 · CITES
• openalex:w1968869144 · CITES
• openalex:w1986880209 · CITES
• openalex:w1999079861 · CITES
• Legal personality and the natural world: on the persistence of the human measure of value · CITES
• openalex:w2011878980 · CITES
• openalex:w201479510 · CITES
• openalex:w2018203936 · CITES
• openalex:w2031176292 · CITES

7 incoming references within the detected corpus

Documentary status

Relevance pending

Library

This identity is not yet included in the Legal Library.