Nature as a Rights-Holder? Procedural Rights and Gaps After the Inter-American Court’s Climate Advisory Opinion

[Juliana Moreira Mendonça (Brazil) is a visiting researcher at the Department of Security Studies of Georgetown University, a Public Defender in Rio de Janeiro State and Associate Personnel at the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.

Professor Claudia Martin (Argentina) is the Co-Director of the Academy on Human Rights and Humanitarian Law and Professorial Lecturer in Residence at American University Washington College of Law. She is a founding member of GQUAL (currently serving on the Secretariat) and the Red Latinoamericana de Litigio Estratégico en Género (ReLeG) (currently a coordinator).]

The views expressed in this post are strictly personal and do not necessarily reflect the position of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.

The Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACtHR) issued Advisory Opinion AO-32/25 on Human Rights and the Climate Emergency, marking a turning point in the protection of environmental rights in the Americas. For the first time, the IACtHR recognized Nature as a subject of rights (IACtHR, AO-32/25, paras. 279–283), moving beyond the anthropocentric framework that has historically guided the Inter-American Human Rights System (IAHRS). It also articulated a new right, the right to a healthy climate (IACtHR, AO-32/25, para. 300), aimed at safeguarding the environmental components directly affected by the climate emergency.

Domestic courts in the region have experimented with ecocentric approaches for over a decade, and AO-32/25 builds on these experiences. Still, the Opinion leaves key procedural questions open. This post situates AO-32/25 within broader regional and comparative developments, contrasts it with the European approach, and identifies unresolved issues that the Court has yet to address.

From Anthropocentrism to Ecocentrism: Recognizing Nature as a Rights-holder

The IACtHR’s recognition of Nature’s legal personality builds upon jurisprudence linking environmental integrity to the realization of human rights. In Awas Tingni v. Nicaragua and Lhaka Honhat v. Argentina, the Court acknowledged the environment’s intrinsic value and emphasized that ecological protection is essential for Indigenous and tribal communities. Advisory Opinion OC-23/17 consolidated this approach by describing the right to a healthy environment as both individual and collective, capable of protecting ecosystems even if no specific individual harm is proven. AO-32/25 moves further by affirming Nature as a subject of rights and anchoring ecological stability as a baseline for life and dignity.

This development intersects with a fragmented domestic movement in the Americas. Ecuador remains the global pioneer, having fully constitutionalized the rights of Nature in 2008. Its Constitutional Court has since transformed these provisions into a ‘laboratory of legal reasoning‘, moving beyond symbolic recognition to operationalize ecosystemic rights in landmark rulings such as Los Cedros, where it prioritized biodiversity over extractive interests. Article 33 of Bolivia’s Constitution protects the right to a healthy environment for individuals, collectives and other living beings. Similarly, the Law of the Mother Earth (2010) (Ley de Derechos de la Madre Tierra) recognizes Nature as a living being with inherent rights. In Colombia, courts have recognized the Atrato River and the Amazon as rights-holders, establishing guardianship models linked to biocultural rights. 

Other States in the region, such as Brazil and Argentina, have taken more incremental or sector-based approaches, relying on environmental legislation, regulatory policies or specific sectoral protections rather than constitutional or judicial recognition of Nature as a rights-holder. While some municipalities in Brazil have locally recognized Nature as a subject of rights, national initiatives, such as the National Policy on Climate Change (PNMC), continue to follow a human-centered approach focused on mitigation and adaptation. Similarly, Argentina reinforces protection through the General Environmental Law (Law 25.675), which promotes intergenerational equity for the benefit of future people, and the country’s ratification of the Escazú Agreement, which remains centered on procedural rights, such as access to information and public participation, specifically for persons. Most OAS Member States continue to apply an anthropocentric constitutional framework centered on the right to a healthy environment for humans.

AO-32/25 elevates these domestic trends to the regional level and requires States to adapt their legal systems to ensure effective protection of Nature. Although significant progress has been made, the Opinion does not clearly define its procedural consequences within the Inter-American System. 

Fragmentation Across Systems

The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) illustrates a more cautious trajectory. The Court has long recognized that environmental harm can interfere with Convention rights, as seen in Tătar v. Romania and Fadeyeva v. Russia, but it has not interpreted the Convention as containing an autonomous right to a healthy environment. In Kyrtatos v. Greece, the Court held that Article 8 does not extend to “general environmental deterioration.” In KlimaSeniorinnen, the ECtHR determined that Article 8 requires States to adopt effective measures against the adverse impacts of climate change, given the specific health risks faced by older women. Still, the analysis remains grounded in individualised harm and an anthropocentric threshold, rather than implementing an ecocentric approach.

This restrictive interpretation, defined by some authors as “indirect protection through proxy rights”—e.g. civil and political rights—is compounded by the ongoing debates on locus standi that continue to beset the European case law, by distinguishing between “environmental cases” and “climate change cases” for purposes of standing and victim status. This creates what has been described as a false dilemma between action popularis and future generations. 

Contrasted with AO-32/25, this divergence illustrates the possibility of systemic fragmentation (Abrusci, 2019, p. 92). While regional human rights systems naturally operate within distinct institutional and cultural contexts, so that some divergence in interpretation is expected and may even stimulate the development of new approaches to human rights law (ASIL 2019 Recap), the concern arises when interpretations of fundamental human rights norms diverge to an extent that may affect the coherence and perceived universality of international human rights law. Scholarly analyses suggest that such conflicting interpretations may challenge the legitimacy of adjudicatory bodies and complicate consistent human rights protection across regimes (Abrusci 2023; Ajevski 2015).

Domestic Preconditions and Access to the Inter-American System

Access to the Inter-American System depends on internal procedures, including the existence of legally recognized claimants and the exhaustion of domestic remedies. In a regional context where recognition and mechanisms for the protection of Nature’s rights remain uneven, AO-32/25 does not clarify how claims would advance when national law has not incorporated Nature as a rights-holder or provided avenues for judicial enforcement.  AO-32/25 requires expanded access to justice at the national level, including collective or public interest cases, but this does not mean such access is automatically available at the international level. At this early stage, it remains uncertain which pathways could enable the effective submission of claims on behalf of Nature before the System.

Victim Status Under Article 44 of the American Convention

Recognizing Nature as a rights-holder challenges the established definition of “victim” under Article 44 of the American Convention. As reaffirmed in Advisory Opinion OC-22/16, victim status within the System is limited to human beings (“the Inter-American protection of human rights” only includes physical or natural persons”), with collective standing permitted only for Indigenous and tribal communities and trade unions in strictly justified circumstances. 

AO-32/25 does not address the tension this creates with prior standards, nor does it indicate whether this development modifies or departs from OC-22/16. In the absence of such clarification, it is uncertain whether both opinions are intended to coexist with distinct procedural consequences, or whether AO-32/25 implicitly initiates a broader evolution in the definition of victimhood in the Inter-American System.

Against this backdrop, several operational questions emerge for future climate litigation before the Court: Can Nature itself be considered a victim in contentious cases? Would recognizing Nature’s standing require reform of the Convention, or could it be grounded in an evolutive interpretation (OC-16/99, párr. 114) consistent with AO-32/25? And who would have active standing to represent Nature and satisfy the requirement to exhaust domestic remedies where internal mechanisms remain undeveloped?

Separate opinions highlight these concerns. Judge Hernández López emphasized that the American Convention’s architecture is designed around human victims, citing Articles 1(2), 44 and 63(1), and argued that extending standing to non-human entities exceeds the current normative framework of the Convention and would require State consent through treaty reform rather than judicial interpretation. Judges Mudrovitsch, Ferrer Mac-Gregor and Pérez Manrique acknowledged that domestic legal systems have evolved to recognize Nature as a subject of rights but warned that the Opinion does not clarify how such recognition would operate under the Court’s existing rules on admissibility and representation. Judge Pérez Goldberg pointed to the lack of “representation legitimacy” as a critical obstacle; she argued that since Nature lacks agency, the absence of clear normative criteria to determine who can validly speak on its behalf risks the instrumentalization of ecological interests by external human agendas . Furthermore, she noted that practical hurdles regarding reparations cannot be resolved within the Inter-American System without prior normative reform.

Who Speaks for Nature?

Recognizing Nature as a rights-holder does not settle the issue of representation. Standing before the Court requires a legally recognized representative capable of presenting a claim and exhausting domestic remedies. AO-32/25 does not indicate who could represent Nature for these purposes, raising additional uncertainty regarding: (i) whether non-indigenous communities, environmental defenders, or public authorities could act on Nature’s behalf; and (ii) how these actors would demonstrate sufficient nexus with the alleged harm to satisfy admissibility requirements.

Reparations as a Potential Bridge

Given these gaps, one possible avenue for giving practical effect to Nature’s rights within the current Inter-American framework would be through the Court’s remedial practice.

The Court has long issued ecological and cultural restoration orders in cases such as Sarayaku v. Ecuador and Lhaka Honhat v. Argentina. AO-32/25 reinforces the possibility of designating Nature as a beneficiary of restoration, conservation or rehabilitation measures.

Under this approach, human victims would provide standing, while reparations would protect Nature as a rights-holder. This arrangement fits within existing doctrine and may function as an interim bridge while more explicit mechanisms are developed.

Conclusion: A Progressive Step, Yet Procedurally Unsettling

AO-32/25 signals a profound shift in the Inter-American System by recognizing Nature as a rights-holder, but the transition from normative promise to operational reality remains unsettled. The Opinion invites the Court to rethink admissibility, victim status, and representation in cases where Nature is the primary entity affected, yet it leaves the design of those mechanisms undefined.

Implementing this paradigm will require both procedural adjustments in the Court and the creation of domestic avenues for climate claims. In the meantime, incremental approaches may emerge, such as reparations that directly benefit Nature in cases involving identifiable human victims, aligning with current remedial practice while the procedural tools evolve. The path has been opened; its practical realization will depend on how the Inter-American System addresses these questions in future contentious litigation. At the same time, divergences between regional systems highlight the risk of fragmentation in the international protection of environmental rights. Some divergence may reflect legitimate regional variation and contribute to the development of new approaches, yet it also signals the importance of ongoing comparative engagement to support coherence across human rights regimes.

Photo attribution: Photo by lucas mendes on Unsplash