The Politics of Rights of Nature: Strategies for Building a More Sustainable Future by Craig M. Kauffman and Pamela L. Martin

Abstract

The argument for recognizing the rights of nature (RoN) is hardly new—the late Christopher Stone first made the case for granting legal rights to environmental entities in 1972. Beginning with a 2006 RoN ordinance in the United States and an Ecuadoran constitutional amendment in 2008, the movement for the rights of nature has recently caught fire. This is the puzzle driving Craig Kauffman and Pamela Martin’s research in their book The Politics of the Rights of Nature. Why has the RoN movement gained so much momentum in the past two decades, and what accounts for the “salience” and unexpected diffusion of the RoN norm? To address these questions, Kauffman and Martin employ a sophisticated mixed methodological approach, including case studies and several years of fieldwork in five of the six countries they profile. Beyond interviews and surveys, they engaged in comparative historical analysis, process tracing, and social network analysis to explore the emergence and diffusion of RoN. Kauffman and Martin contribute to the growing body of literature on RoN, as well as building on existing theories of norm diffusion and contestation. RoN norm emergence challenges leading explanations of norm diffusion, given the independent but “nearly simultaneous” development of RoN norms at multiple levels of government (from local to national). The authors draw on evolutionary biology, using convergent evolution theory, to explain the concurrent development of normatively similar but institutionally distinct RoN legislation. Akin to convergent evolution theory in evolutionary biology, they argue that “functionally similar RoN laws ... emerged independently in response to common environmental pressures” (19). Part of what makes Kauffman and Martin’s work so expansive is their thorough coverage of the major cases of RoN legislation in Ecuador, Bolivia, the United States, and New Zealand, as well as the recent emergence of environmental personhood in India and Colombia. They begin their case study analysis with a most-similar-systems comparison between Ecuador and Bolivia—both of which incorporated RoN clauses into their constitutions after electing left populist leaders who claimed to support the Indigenous communities in their respective countries. Despite similar cultures and socioeconomic structures, Ecuador’s RoN clause flourished, while Bolivia’s 2012 RoN amendment languished to the point of oblivion. In their exploration of Ecuador’s growing body