Rights of Nature

The Inter-American Court of Human Rights has officially recognized that nature has rights, setting a powerful precedent in international law.

On 3 July 2025, the Court announced its issue of Advisory Opinion OC-32/25, recognizing Nature and its components as a subject of rights. This is the first time the Court explicitly affirms that Nature, in and of itself, can hold legal rights, marking a groundbreaking moment in the evolution of human rights and environmental jurisprudence.

According to the Court, this recognition “constitutes a normative development that reinforces the protection of the integrity and functionality of ecosystems in the long term, providing effective legal tools to confront the triple planetary crisis and prevent existential damage before it becomes irreversible.”

Approved by four votes to three, the Opinion confirms that recognizing Nature as a subject of rights does not introduce foreign content into the Inter-American human rights corpus, but rather reflects a contemporary expression of the principle of interdependence between human rights and the environment.

“This approach strengthens a paradigm focused on protecting the ecological conditions essential for life and empowers local communities and Indigenous peoples, who have historically served as guardians of ecosystems.” (OC-32/25, para. 280)

This pivotal decision cited IPBES scientific evidence from the Global Assessment Report on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (2019) and the Americas Regional Assessment (2018), emphasizing how biodiversity loss threatens both nature and human well-being.

This legal precedent opens the door to new strategic litigation efforts, the protection of threatened ecosystems, and the advancement of Nature’s Rights legislation throughout the region. It marks a significant shift: protecting nature is no longer just an environmental issue, it is a matter of human rights.

SOURCES: https://www.garn.org/inter-american-court-of-human-rights-rights-of-nat…
Inter-American Court of Human Rights, Advisory Opinion of 29 May 2025: https://jurisprudencia.corteidh.or.cr/es/vid/1084981967/search
ICHR Press release 3 July 2025 https://www.corteidh.or.cr/docs/comunicados/cp_48_2025.pdf