On November 16 and 17, you’re invited to participate in two days of interactive online learning with leading environmental advocates and lawyers at the Green Rights and Warrior Lawyers Virtual Academy 2024, hosted by the Peter A. Allard School of Law’s Centre for Law and the Environment.
This year’s Academy focuses on the rights of nature. “This is the idea that non-human entities have the right to exist and to continue their ecological processes,” explains Allard Law Professor Stepan Wood, who first offered the virtual Academy in 2022. “This idea is being translated into law in dozens of countries around the world, where animal species, plant species – and even the entire animal kingdom, rivers, glaciers and wetlands – are being recognized as legal persons with rights.”
Throughout the two-day event, several speakers from around the world will share their experiences formalizing the rights of nature in law and translating the law on the books into law in action.
Last time the Academy was offered, participants joined from around the world and included law students, lawyers and environmental activists, each bringing their own unique perspectives and experiences. This year, Wood hopes to draw a similarly diverse group of participants. “This is open to anybody, anywhere in the world, at any stage of lifelong learning,” adds Wood.
Cheyenne Campbell was one of several Allard Law students who participated in the 2022 Academy. “As an Indigenous law student, I was drawn to the Academy to hear from legal leaders dedicated to harnessing the law for environmental and societal change,” says Campbell. “The speakers’ commitment to using the law as a tool to protect our world resonated deeply with me and aligned with my values and vision for what law can achieve.”
Campbell, who will be graduating from law school this spring, says the Academy reminded her of the many paths within law that allow for meaningful change. “Hearing from such passionate and principled professionals gave me confidence in pursuing my specialized area of focus, knowing that when you have passion, commitment and love behind the work you do, we can truly make a difference. It was both grounding and empowering.”
On November 16, Yenny Vega Cárdenas, lawyer and president of the International Observatory on Nature’s Rights, will be joined by Rita Mestokosho, Indigenous writer, poet and member of the Innu Nation in Northern Quebec, to tell the story of the landmark decision in 2021 by the Innu Council of Ekuanitshit and the municipality of Minganie to pass twin resolutions recognizing the Magpie River as a legal person.
“The Magpie River is one of the last free-running rivers in Quebec that has not been dammed for hydropower, and in Innu culture it’s understood as an ancestor and a living creature, rather than an inanimate entity,” explains Wood.
“This is not the first example of Indigenous people's laws recognizing nature as a person or recognizing non-human beings as having rights and entitlements, but it is the first explicit victory for legal rights for nature in Canada,” Wood adds.
In addition to interactive, practical workshops, participants will also explore the rights of nature in a mock trial. “The idea is to get people to put themselves in the shoes of the different actors who would be involved in a rights of nature dispute and to come up with arguments and evidence,” says Wood. “These concepts are much more meaningful for people if they can explore these ideas for themselves.”
Participants will work with Vancouver-based theatre director Leslee Silverman, a recipient of the Governor General's Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Performing Arts who has decades of experience using theatre as a tool for education and awareness raising in her work with adults and youth.
Other instructors include Ecuadorean rights of nature lawyer Hugo Echeverría; lawyers Jacqueline Gallant and Carlos Andrés Baquero-Díaz of New York University Law School’s More Than Human Life project, and global rights of nature pioneer Mari Margil of the Center for Democratic and Environmental Rights. “Margil’s session will help participants see how similar laws could be enacted and enforced where they live,” Isabella Schopper, Allard Law student and Academy project manager.
Schopper says law student participants will gain a wide variety of practical knowledge and get inspired during the two-day session. “Sometimes it can be hard for students who are interested in social justice, the environment, and public interest law to find ways to act on that,” says Schopper. “It can be easy to lose hope, and that’s why this is so important – to continue to inspire people to keep pushing forward.”
Register now for the Green Rights and Warrior Lawyers Virtual Academy, taking place on November 16 and 17.
