Theme: Rights of Nature
Sunday, December 13th
Mari Margil and Thomas Linzey of the Center for Democratic and Environmental Rights, leading figures in the global movement to recognize the legal rights of ecosystems and nature, will share exciting recent developments in that effort. They will highlight breakthroughs in tribal nations, communities, and countries around the world. They will explain how advancing the rights of nature in legal codes and constitutions can lead to a radical transformation in humankind’s relationship with the natural world.
December 13th | 10:39 am to 10:54 am
Keynote
Mari Margil
Executive Director | Center for Democratic and Environmental Rights
Mari Margil, Executive Director of the Center for Democratic and Environmental Rights, leads its International Center for the Rights of Nature. Previously Associate Director of the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund, she assisted the first places in the world to secure the Rights of Nature in law, including Ecuador. She works internationally as well as with Indigenous peoples and tribal nations to advance Rights of Nature legal and policy frameworks. Mari is a co-author of: The Bottom Line or Public Health and Exploring Wild Law: The Philosophy of Earth Jurisprudence.
Thomas Linzey
Senior Legal Counsel | Center for Democratic and Environmental Rights
Thomas Linzey, Senior Counsel for the Center for Democratic and Environmental Rights (CDER), co-founded the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund and the Daniel Pennock Democracy School (which has graduated over 5,000 lawyers, activists, and municipal officials nationally to fight to elevate the rights of their communities over corporate rights). He is the author of several books, including: Be The Change: How to Get What You Want in Your Community; On Community Civil Disobedience in the Name of Sustainability; and co-author of: We the People: Stories from the Community Rights Movement in the United States.
Interactive/Participatory Workshop
Changing the way that the legal system works to protect nature requires creating a new system—one based not on regulating the rate at which we destroy nature, but on which giving nature-protectors the necessary tools to advocate for the rights of ecosystems to exist, flourish, regenerate, and be restored. Two of the most prominent leaders in the field of Rights of Nature, who assisted the Ecuadorian Constituent Assembly to recognize the rights of nature in their constitution, will explore how to draft and advance rights of nature laws in your own community, as well as the challenges and obstacles faced in doing so, and the nitty-gritty of how to overcome those challenges and obstacles. With: Mari Margil and Thomas Linzey of the Center for Democratic and Environmental Rights.
December 13th | 2:00 pm to 3:30 pm
Panelists
Mari Margil
Executive Director | Center for Democratic and Environmental Rights
Mari Margil, Executive Director of the Center for Democratic and Environmental Rights, leads its International Center for the Rights of Nature. Previously Associate Director of the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund, she assisted the first places in the world to secure the Rights of Nature in law, including Ecuador. She works internationally as well as with Indigenous peoples and tribal nations to advance Rights of Nature legal and policy frameworks. Mari is a co-author of: The Bottom Line or Public Health and Exploring Wild Law: The Philosophy of Earth Jurisprudence.
Thomas Linzey
Senior Legal Counsel | Center for Democratic and Environmental Rights
Thomas Linzey, Senior Counsel for the Center for Democratic and Environmental Rights (CDER), co-founded the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund and the Daniel Pennock Democracy School (which has graduated over 5,000 lawyers, activists, and municipal officials nationally to fight to elevate the rights of their communities over corporate rights). He is the author of several books, including: Be The Change: How to Get What You Want in Your Community; On Community Civil Disobedience in the Name of Sustainability; and co-author of: We the People: Stories from the Community Rights Movement in the United States.
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