CHRA Alumni Spotlight: The Rights of Mother Nature

CHRA MA graduate Elie Arden presented “Sacrifice Zones: The Rights of Mother Nature, or, Becoming Indispensable” at the 5th Conference on Latin American Political Ecology held in Mexico City 4–6 December 2024. Arden’s paper, originally written as her final assignment for her MA core requirement HRA 503: Critical Perspectives on Human Rights (Spring 2024 with Tom Keenan), takes a critical perspective on the environmentalist strategy of affirming constitutional rights of Mother Nature. Whereas recent writings and advocacy have centered ecopolitics as an alternative to biopolitics, Arden complicates this substitution by suggesting that the subjectivization of Nature—as a constitutionally determined body—is problematic. Using examples from various legal cases (Bolivia, Ecuador and Panama), particularly those involving lithium extraction, she demonstrates that making Mother Nature into a subject of rights has a paradoxical relationship to environmental protection and sacrifice. Therein governments can diminish and erase other conceptions central to the protection of the ecological world. While the paper was originally written in English, Arden presented in Spanish—which was the primary language of the conference.


Post Date: 06-23-2025