ABSTRACT
The first lawsuit was filed on 30 March 2011 against the local government near Rio Vilcabamba, which was responsible for a road expansion project that dumped debris into the river, narrowing its width and thereby doubling its speed. In the USA the Community Environmental Legal Defence Fund has been spearheading Community Rights Networks, which allow communities under environmental threat to pass ‘rights of nature’ ordinances. Natural Justice is a young and fast-paced non-profit organisation specialising in environmental and human rights law in Africa in pursuit of social and environmental justice. There is evidence that the post-2008 constitutional and legal provisions are beginning to give rise to litigation and enforcement based on the legal personhood of nature in Ecuador, the USA and India, but there is a need for judicial traction for ‘rights of nature’ and juristic personhood to become normative in most jurisdictions.
