Rights of nature and universal standing

The claim

Nature holds the right to exist, to persist, to maintain its cycles and functions, and to be restored where it has been damaged. The right belongs to ecosystems, watersheds, rivers, aquifers, forests, wetlands, soils, coasts, the atmosphere, and to species and their populations, whether or not any statute names them.

Standing

This is the operative half. Any person may bring an action in the name of a natural entity. No personal injury, no residence, no nationality, no economic interest. Court fees, security for costs and adverse costs orders are all excluded. A river's case does not depend on finding someone whose fishing it spoiled.

Guardians

Organic law may name particular entities and give them legal personality, with appointed guardians who act in their interest and account publicly. Guardianship confers no ownership and no power of disposal. Not being named diminishes no right.

Remedies

Cessation, injunction, restoration to the prior condition, compensation applied to the affected system before any other claimant, and where restoration is impossible, permanent protection of an equivalent system. Restoration is owed in labour, materials and energy taken from the polluter's own allocation.

Ecocide

Grave damage to a natural system that is either widespread or long-lasting is an offence, tried in the ordinary courts, and neither an office nor an order from a superior excuses it.