Rights of Nature in the Norwegian Legal Culture:To Be or Not to Be?

In a global context of pervasive air, water, and soil pollution, climate change, and the loss of biodiversity – all backlit by evolving progressive interpretations of socio­ecological justice – new ontological approaches are emerging for Western law: the legal relationship between humans and nature is changing.1 From a legal system where nature was objectified as either property or a set of ecosystem ser­vices, legal orders are beginning to recognize ecosystems as subjects with rights and obligations of their own, a new step in environmental constitutionalism.2 As the constitutional incorporation of substantive and procedural environmental rights, duties, and remedies, environmental constitutionalism has been deployed to protect the natural environment in new ways.3 Nonetheless, questions linger on whether protecting nature via constitutional stipulations is sufficient or wheth­er nature itself should be subject to rights.4In Norway, rights of nature (RoN), rights to nature, and environmental rights have been discussed for over a decade.5 To better understand the role of RoN in Norwegian law, this article’s research question concerns the current status of the rights of nature in Norway, connecting existing debates on RoN internationally with ongoing climate and biodiversity litigation in Norway. Our approach com­bines legal culture with ethical considerations that have germinated in Norway, notably Deep Ecology.To discuss the research question, we divide the article into three main parts. Firstly, we explore the conceptualization and expansion of RoN globally and re­view its treatment in the literature. Secondly, we offer a general view of Norway, its legal culture, and the state of legal recognition of RoN therein. Thirdly, build­ing on the results from the previous sections, we discuss the notion of legal du­ties toward nature as either an alternative or potential predecessor of RoN.