ABSTRACT
Juristic personhood has a pedigree which goes back to Roman law, but it was limited initially to the legal personhood of organisations of people and a variety of collegial institutions. The ancient laws of jus gentium, which later developed into the ‘public trust’ doctrine, were formulated by the Byzantine Emperor Justinian, who held that the sea, the shores of the sea, the air and running water were common to everyone. Public trusts, however, like corporations, are normally constituted only for the benefit of human beings. A more far-reaching measure is required to confer juristic personhood and direct rights on other-than-human persons. Various attempts have been made in modern times to accord legal status to other-than-human persons. In 2008, Ecuador became the first country in the world to declare in its constitution that ‘nature’, or Pachamama, is a legal entity.
