If corporations can be legal persons, why not rivers?

August 27, 2018 3:27 PM

Should Rivers Have Rights? A Growing Movement Says It’s About Time. Inspired by indigenous views of nature, a movement to grant a form of legal “personhood” to rivers is gaining some ground — a key step, advocates say, in reversing centuries of damage inflicted upon the world’s waterways.
posted by Lyme Drop (14 comments total)

We've granted corporations 'personhood' rights, so sure, why not? It's not like we can expect the EPA to actually do their job any more, and like, protect the environment.
posted by Old'n'Busted at 3:32 PM on August 27, 2018 [2 favorites]

Ben Aaronovitch would approve of this, I think.
posted by heatherlogan at 4:16 PM on August 27, 2018 [4 favorites]

So would Sarah Monette.
posted by ALeaflikeStructure at 4:28 PM on August 27, 2018 [2 favorites]

Maybe my darling Murray wouldn't have to keep their mouth shut if this came about.
posted by unliteral at 5:06 PM on August 27, 2018

It's an interesting idea, but I feel that people pushing this idea for environmental reasons are falling prey to the politicians' fallacy: something must be done; this is something; therefore it must be done. Conferring legal personhood on a river makes many environmental decisions harder, not easier, and exposes all interested parties to complex legal questions inspired by analogy to the rights of natural persons. I wish the author hadn't buried these questions in the second-last paragraph:

What does it mean for a river to have the rights of a person? Does a river have the right to flow freely, and does this mean its waters can’t be dammed or diverted? Is compensation to affected communities permissible in lieu of court orders requiring removal of large obstructions like dams? What can we do to move beyond merely acknowledging humanity’s connection to rivers to actually saving them? And, finally, and perhaps most important, how should a legal regime determine who will advocate on behalf of a river, which lacks a voice of its own?

Yes, those are all good questions. I would add: if a river is legally a person, can it be sued for trespass (i.e., flooding) or abandonment (changing its course)? Should it be able to charge the people along its banks with trespass? How can trustees decide what is in a river's interest? For example, what if they legitimately thought it was in the river's interest for it to "retire", and be piped underground? Why should local residents' environmental interests take precedence over a river's "interest" in flowing to the sea?
posted by Joe in Australia at 5:25 PM on August 27, 2018 [9 favorites]

I think river personhood (mountains and some trees too) is the only way we will save anything real. Without the sacred the law is worthless. We need new myths, this is a valid base for them.
posted by unearthed at 5:44 PM on August 27, 2018 [1 favorite]

Regrettably, the idea was knocked down in the courts long ago.

https://iseethics.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/stone-christopher-d-should-trees-have-standing.pdf

https://www.google.com/search?q=%22should+trees+have+standing
posted by hank at 6:22 PM on August 27, 2018 [1 favorite]

If corporations are people then sure, the things they fuck up should be people too.
posted by Artw at 6:38 PM on August 27, 2018 [1 favorite]

Waiting to see "Old Man River vs Faceless MegaCorp" cited as a precedent.
posted by allium cepa at 6:46 PM on August 27, 2018 [3 favorites]

It makes sense. In scientific policy circles this is known as "Ecological Flow" or "Environmental Flow"--flow integral to the existence and function of the river. Half the US already has riparian common law. This would go a long way toward undoing the "law of capture" that persists in western states. Rivers do not have the right to exist under such laws.

This wouldn't be nearly as legally complicated as some of you would make it out to be. Water law in the US is already an insane patchwork of total fictions (like pretending groundwater and surface water are different things--hello Florida).

But then again, the US is so anti-science it failed to legally define the "waters of the united states."
posted by eustatic at 7:49 PM on August 27, 2018 [4 favorites]

I was on a jury in a civil trial between two neighbors - two lawyers - about a property line. NOT their first trial on this issue; it was at least the third. For two weeks, these assholes battled it out, taking my time, the county's time, my fellow jurors' time, for an issue that reasonable people could have decided within a hour. Or a week if they'd agreed to mediation.

The upshot? The property line was settled to their mutual satisfaction if and only if a gorgeous pear tree was sacrificed for a new fence. The pear tree predated both households' ownership. During deliberations I wondered aloud why the tree didn't have representation and got, not exactly laughed at, but raised eyebrows from my fellow jurors. But you know, I don't think that idea was so wrong.
posted by goofyfoot at 9:10 PM on August 27, 2018 [6 favorites]

Risks eroding the special status of human rights without, so far as I can see, giving rivers any protections they couldn’t be given by more direct and therefore probably more robust legislative measures.

If rights have to exercised on your behalf, you’re not really being given those rights at all.
posted by Segundus at 9:36 PM on August 27, 2018 [4 favorites]

No offense to rivers but I'd rather remove corporations' right to personhood before we go granting more uncaring and destructive forces of nature undue human rights.
posted by GoblinHoney at 10:05 AM on August 28, 2018 [5 favorites]

i just want to grant rights to all the things and then watch a lawyer for a left-handed scissor argue discrimination against a tool bin
posted by numaner at 10:57 AM on August 29, 2018 [1 favorite]