Rivers, landscapes, whole territories: these are the latest entities environmental activists have fought hard to include in the relentless expansion of rights in our world. But what does it mean for a landscape to have rights? Why would anyone want to create such rights, and to what end? Is it a good idea, and does it come with risks? This book presents the logic behind giving nature rights and discusses the most important cases in which this has happened, ranging from constitutional rights of nature in Ecuador to rights for rivers in New Zealand, Colombia, and India. Mihnea Tanasescu offers clear answers to the thorny questions that the intrusion of nature into law is sure to raise.

Mihnea Tanasescu, born in 1984, is a political ecologist with a background in human ecology, philosophy, and political science. He has published widely on the political representation of other than human beings. He was a research fellow of the Research Foundation Flanders (FWO) and a visiting fellow at the University of Auckland, NZ (Law), and the New School for Social Research, USA (Politics).