Green Rights and Warrior Lawyers Virtual Academy 2024

8 am Vancouver, Los Angeles | 9 am Denver, Mexico City | 10 am Chicago, Quito | 11 am Toronto, New York | Noon Buenos Aires, São Paulo | 4 pm London, Lagos | 5 pm Paris, Johannesburg

60 minutes

This session introduced the Academy and gave participants an opportunity to introduce themselves.

Instructor

Stepan Wood is the Canada Research Chair in Law, Society and Sustainability and Director of the Centre for Law & the Environment at the Allard School of Law, University of British Columbia. He is a settler living and working as an uninvited guest on the unceded territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm, Skxwú7mesh and səlil̓wətaʔɬ Peoples. He studies environmental law and justice, sustainability, Indigenous-settler legal relations, and social justice. He leads the Green Rights and Warrior Lawyers program, a public education initiative that brings issues of environmental rights and justice to life and inspires action through the power of stories of “warrior lawyers” and Indigenous legal knowledge holders around the world working to advance “green rights” through (or despite) law. He also coordinates the Respect for All Relations action-research program, a community-driven collaboration with BC First Nations and environmental organizations that investigates whether and how Indigenous laws can be revitalized and settler laws reformed to achieve respect for Indigenous legal orders and for all beings with whom humans have reciprocal relationships. He is the author of two plain language guides on Rights of Nature, available on the CLE website.

9 am Vancouver, Los Angeles | 10 am Denver, Mexico City | 11 am Chicago, Quito | Noon Toronto, New York | 1 pm Buenos Aires, São Paulo) | 5 pm London, Lagos | 6 pm Paris, Johannesburg

90 minutes

Ecuador is the first and so far only country in the world to enshrine rights of nature in its constitution, the most basic law of the land. In this session, Ecuadorean lawyer Hugo Echeverría shared his stories of advocating for enforcement of nature's constitutional rights as a "friend of the court" (amicus curiae) in lawsuits before the Ecuadorean courts.  

Instructor

Hugo Echeverría is an Attorney at Law and Doctor of Jurisprudence granted by Pontificia Universidad Católica de Quito, Ecuador, Master of Laws (LLM) granted by the Univetisty of McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, and alumni of the Chevening Fellowship Program, directed by The Foreign and Commonwealth Office, on Environmental Governance at Wolverhampton University, United Kingdom. He has worked in Environmental Law since 2001, with an emphasis on International Law and biodiversity conservation, including the issues of marine protected areas and marine protected species. Other areas of work include regional approaches to marine protected areas, constitutional approaches to the rights of nature, and penal approaches to biodiversity conservation (wildlife crime).   

Hugo lived and worked in the Galapagos Islands, where he monitored enforcement of conservation laws, focusing of sharks. Most recently, Hugo provided legal advice to a citizen proposal on the creation of the new Hermandad Marine Reserve, which covers an area extending from Ecuador to Costa Rica. Hugo has extensive experience on the Ecuadorian legal framework of Network of Marine Protected Areas, especially on enforcement matters. Hugo has worked as consultant to international and national non-governmental organizations based in Ecuador and covering projects of marine conservation. Hugo lectures Environmental Law in Ecuador, at undergraduate and graduate levels. Between 2014 and 2017, he coordinated the minor on Environmental Law at the Law School of Universidad San Francisco de Quito, where he currently lectures in Penal Environmental Law. He has written books as well as essays. His book on wildlife crime of sharks in the Galapagos Islands (2017), remains the first in Ecuador examining this issue.  

He is the author of the first Amicus Curiae submitted at the National Court of Justice (Supreme Court), in a case regarding the illegal transportation of 6226 sharks through the Galapagos Marine Reserve (Fu Yuan Yu Leng case, 2019), and the author of an Amicus Curiae submitted at the Constitutional Court of Ecuador, in the first case selected by the Court to issue binding jurisprudence on rights of Nature. Hugo Echeverria is a member of the United Nations Harmony with Nature; a member of the IUCN World Commission on Environmental Law; a member of the Environmental Law Institute of the Asociación Iberoamericana de Derecho, Cultura y Ambiente, as well as a member of the Ecuadorian Foro de Abogados (Bar Association). He is also the copresident of the Research Group on the Rights of Nature of the International Association of Constitutional Law.  

11 am Vancouver, Los Angeles | Noon Denver, Mexico City | 1 pm Chicago, Quito | 2 pm Toronto, New York | 3 pm Buenos Aires, São Paulo | 7 pm London, Lagos | 8 pm Paris, Johannesburg

90 minutes

This session explored the story of one river and the individuals who campaigned successfully to have it legally recognized as a person with rights. Lawyer Yenny Vega Cárdenas of the Observatoire International des Droits de la Nature (International Observatory on the Rights of Nature) and Innu filmmaker, land guardian and youth leader Uapukun Mestokosho led this session. They were instrumental in securing the adoption of twin resolutions in 2021 by a municipal government and an Indigenous governing body recognizing the Magpie River (Mutehekau Shipu) in the province of Quebec as a legal person with nine enumerated rights, the first formal rights of nature laws in Canada. They shared their stories of achieving these resolutions on paper and implementing them in practice.

Instructors

Yenny Vega Cárdenas, Ph.D. and Attorney at law, is President and co-founder of the International Observatory on the Rights of Nature and serves as an Expert member of the UN Harmony with Nature chapter. Additionally, Dr. Vega Cárdenas is an invited researcher at the Max Planck Institute for International and Comparative Law in Hamburg, Germany. She is a lawyer in Canada and Colombia, with a Master's degree in Business Law and a Ph.D. in Water Law in North America from a Canadian university. She is an expert on transboundary water law and teaches public international law, water and governance, and comparative law at numerous universities in Canada and Latin America. She has published numerous scientific articles and books in English, French, and Spanish and is frequently invited to present at national and international conferences on water and rights of Nature issues.  

She has been instrumental in the landmark recognition of rights and personhood for the Magpie River, marking a historic first in Canada. Through the International Observatory on the Rights of Nature, she is spearheading the campaign for the legal personality recognition of the Saint Lawrence River in Canada. 

She recently co-directed a collective book on the recognition of Nature and Rivers as subjects of rights. Titled "A Legal Personhood for the Saint-Lawrence River and other rivers of the world”. Her most recent book is on the Methodology and Epistemology of Comparative Law published by Lexis Nexis Canada. 

Rita Mestokosho is an Innu land guardian, writer and poet. 

1 pm Vancouver, Los Angeles | 2 pm Denver, Mexico City | 3 pm Chicago, Quito | 4 pm Toronto, New York | 5 pm Buenos Aires, São Paulo | 9 pm London, Lagos | 10 pm Paris, Johannesburg

90 minutes

This session introduced participants to the main creative activity of the Academy, a mock trial of a rights of nature case. In this role-playing exercise, participants worked in groups to be the voice of a human or more-than-human entity involved in a lawsuit to enforce the rights of nature. They spoke for a river, an Indigenous nation, an environmental group, a national government and a multinational corporation. The lawsuit was set in a fictional country with a fictional rights of nature law modelled on the Universal Declaration of the Rights of Mother Earth, a non-binding instrument adopted by a global people's assembly in Cochabamba, Bolivia in 2011. This session was led by professor Stepan Wood with coaching assistance by Leslee Silverman, one of Canada's leading theatre directors and educators. 

Instructor: Stepan Wood

Theatre coach:

Leslee Silverman has been recognized for her outstanding contribution to Canadian theatre for young audiences. She has helped build theatres, theatre schools and directed original  productions for young people from Flin Flon to Broome, Australia. Her many honours include the Human Rights Commitment Award for promoting rights and social transformation for thirty years and, for her significant contribution to the well-being of the community through theatre work that tackles issues faced by young people. In 2003,  Leslee was the first recipient of the Manitoba Arts Council Arts Award of Distinction recognizing "the highest level of artistic excellence and distinguished career achievements by a professional Manitoba artist." In 2011, she was awarded the Governor General’s Award in Performing Arts for Lifetime Artistic Achievements. 

2:30 pm Vancouver, Los Angeles | 3:30 pm Denver, Mexico City | 4:30 pm Chicago, Quito | 5:30 pm Toronto, New York | 6:30 pm Buenos Aires, São Paulo) | 10:30 pm London, Lagos | 11:30 pm Paris, Johannesburg

30 minutes

We wrapped up Day 1 with a short discussion and debrief to lay the groundwork for Day 2.

Instructor: Stepan Wood

8 am Vancouver, Los Angeles | 9 am Denver, Mexico City | 10 am Chicago, Quito | 11 am Toronto, New York | Noon Buenos Aires, São Paulo | 4 pm London, Lagos | 5 pm Paris, Johannesburg

90 minutes

Imagine that you want to see a rights of nature law enacted and enforced in your community or country. What would such a law look like, and how can you make it happen? This practical workshop session introduced participants to common features of rights of nature laws around the world, common strategies for getting such laws passed, and options for implementing and enforcing them in practice. It was led by one of the world's leading champions of rights of nature, Mari Margil of the Center for Democratic and Environmental Rights in Spokane, Washington, USA.

Instructor

Mari Margil is the Executive Director of the Center for Democratic and Environmental Rights (CDER). centerforenvironmentalrights.org She works with civil society, governments, as well as tribal nations and Indigenous communities in the U.S., Ecuador, Ireland, and elsewhere, to advance Rights of Nature frameworks. She consulted with Ecuador’s Constituent Assembly, helping to draft the world’s first Rights of Nature constitutional provisions. Margil received her Master’s degree from Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, and is a co-author of The Bottom Line or Public Health (Oxford University Press 2010), Exploring Wild Law: The Philosophy of Earth Jurisprudence (Wakefield Press 2011), and Bearing Witness: The Human Rights Case Against Fracking and Climate Change (Oregon State University Press 2021). Her writing has also been featured in publications including The Guardian, YES! Magazine, Earth Island Journal, Mongabay, Democracy Journal, World Policy Journal, and Common Dreams, and her work has been featured in the New York Times, The New Yorker, and elsewhere.

10 am Vancouver, Los Angeles | 11 am Denver, Mexico City | Noon Chicago, Quito | 1 pm Toronto, New York | 2 pm Buenos Aires, São Paulo | 6 pm London, Lagos | 7 pm Paris, Johannesburg

90 minutes

This session introduced participants to the global rights of nature movement via the story of the ground-breaking More Than Human Life (MOTH) Project, an interdisciplinary initiative advancing rights and well-being for humans, non-humans, and the web of life that sustains us all. An initiative of the Earth Rights Research and Action (TERRA) Program at New York University School of Law, the MOTH project combines law, science and the arts to experiment with different pathways to re-embed humanity within the larger web of life that nourishes and sustains us. 

Instructors

 

Jacqueline Gallant is an earth rights lawyer whose work centers around climate change, biodiversity loss, and more-than-human rights. With colleagues, she helps run the NYU More Than Human Life (MOTH) Project. Jacqueline is also an adjunct professor at NYU Law. She holds a J.D. from NYU Law and a B.A. in International Relations from Brown University. 

 

Carlos Andrés Baquero-Díaz is the research director of the NYU TERRA Program at the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice. Currently, he co-curates the More-Than-Human Life Project (MOTH) and the FORGE program, and serves as senior editor at Open Global Rights. He has taught classes on environmental law at Universidad de los Andes and currently is an adjunct professor on critical property and environmental rights at NYU Law School. 

Noon Vancouver, Los Angeles | 1 pm Denver, Mexico City | 2 pm Chicago, Quito | 3 pm Toronto, New York | 4 pm Buenos Aires, São Paulo | 8 pm London, Lagos | 9 pm Paris, Johannesburg

60 minutes

In this session participants worked in groups to prepare for the Rights of Nature mock trial, with guidance from Leslee Silverman and the Academy team (Professor Wood and student volunteers from the University of British Columbia).

Instructor: Stepan Wood

Theatre coach: Leslee Silverman

1:30 pm Vancouver, Los Angeles | 2:30 pm Denver, Mexico City | 3:30 pm Chicago, Quito | 4:30 pm Toronto, New York | 5:30 pm Buenos Aires, São Paulo | 9:30 pm London, Lagos | 10:30 pm Paris, Johannesburg

60 minutes

In this session participants conducted the rights of nature mock trial.

Instructor: Stepan Wood

Theatre coach: Leslee Silverman

2:30 pm Vancouver, Los Angeles | 3:30 pm Denver, Mexico City | 4:30 pm Chicago, Quito | 5:30 pm Toronto, New York | 6:30 pm Buenos Aires, São Paulo | 10:30 pm London, Lagos | 11:30 pm Paris, Johannesburg

30 minutes

We closed the Academy with reflections on common themes, challenges and successes in translating rights of nature from law on the books into law in action. 

Instructor: Stepan Wood