Reimagining International Law: Exploring the Implications of Extending Legal Personhood to Nature

Key points

• Traditional anthropocentric legal frameworks in international law are inadequate for addressing contemporary ecological crises.
• Recognising nature’s legal personhood challenges the human-centric foundations of international law and offers a transformative approach to environmental governance.
• Structural constraints – particularly state sovereignty and the limitations of sustainable development paradigms – remain major impediments to the international recognition of nature’s rights.
• Incremental measures such as soft law instruments, guardianship models and a potential study by the International Law Commission provide feasible pathways for progress.
• Advancing legal recognition for nature requires not only legal reform, but a broader normative shift in how international law conceptualises its subjects and purpose