Can a River Have Rights? The Global Legal Movement You've Probably Never Heard Of

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Can law save the planet? Around the world, a bold new idea has been gaining ground: giving legal rights to nature itself. Rivers, forests, and lagoons are being recognized as legal “persons” in some countries, with rights that can be successfully defended in court. Supporters see this as an inspiring breakthrough in the fight against environmental threats, while critics question its practicality. This webinar is based on a course co-taught with Jill Lepore '95 PhD. It takes you inside the global movement for the Rights of Nature—where it came from, how it works, and whether it can truly make a difference—exploring real-world cases and where it can go from here.

About the Professor

Jim Salzman '85 BA is the Donald Bren Distinguished Professor of Environmental Law with joint appointments at the UCLA School of Law and at the School of the Environment at UC Santa Barbara. An international expert on drinking water, he frequently appears as a media commentator and has lectured on every continent. A popular lecturer and alumni trip speaker, he has twice been voted Professor of the Year by students and taught as a visiting professor at Yale, Harvard, and Stanford, as well as at universities in Australia, China, Israel, Italy, Portugal, and Sweden. Professor Salzman is a prolific author, there have been over 110,000 downloads of his broad-ranging scholarship from around the globe on topics such as water, wildlife, climate change and creating markets for nature. He and Jill Lepore '95 PhD co-teach the course, Rights of Nature, at Harvard.