ABSTRACT
In diverse places across the planet, laws are emerging to change the legal status of more-than-human Nature from objects to subjects with rights. This chapter engages with the conceptual roots of legal subjectivity, in order to reveal the obstacles facing more-than-humans in employing legal statuses designed to solidify the exploitative relations of some humans towards more-than-human Nature. The chapter addresses how a logic and politics of human exceptionalism operates concurrently to exclude other lifeforms from the legal realm, as can be seen in the construction of Nature as object or resource, and to legitimise applications of extractivism towards Nature. Thereafter, the chapter questions whether the recognition of legal subjectivity for more-than-human Nature can be a means to resist extractivist politics, by considering experiences in Bolivia and Ecuador before turning to examine initiatives for the rights of Nature to be recognised in EU law. Ultimately, this chapter hopes to shine a light on the ongoing struggles for more-than-human subjectivities to access meaningful participation, not given realities, in the legal sphere.
