ABSTRACT
The rights of nature (RoN) movement, with its origins in Indigenous traditional knowledge and ancestral cultures, has obtained concrete expression in courts, constitutions, and citizen referenda in numerous places around the world. The notion that nature possesses rights emerged from the uncommon and timely union of non-Western and Western ideas. The field of modern environmental ethics has engaged in a robust debate over the ideal ethical orientation towards nature and its inhabitants at least since Aldo Leopold encouraged “thinking like a mountain”. The legal reasoning applied by the court in the world’s first-ever vindication of the RoN relied on constitutional law, impacts on future generations, and the relationship between humans and nature. The court’s interpretation of the RoN, driven mainly by Acosta’s speech, offers a few important insights regarding the extension of rights to natural nonhuman entities in the Ecuadorian context.
