Rights for Rivers: Summary of Articles from New Special Issue Journal

The Rights of Nature, and in particular the rights of Rivers, have attracted growing academic interest in recent year. This increased attention is evidenced by Journal of Property, Planning and Environmental Law’s special issue, “Rights for Rivers,” edited by Dr. Luke Bennett. The publication includes six articles on the theoretical and actual implications of rights for rivers. These include:

• Kellianne Elliott et al. assert that rivers can have rights without the obligations of duties 

• Souad Ezzerouali et al.’s analysis of the intersection between the Rights of Nature movement and Islamic tradition

• Oluwabusayo Temitope Wuraola’s argument that the rights and personhood of rivers must be recognized

• Ebba Hooft Toomey and Tineke Lambooy’s survey of globally legally living rivers

• Francine Rochford’s Australian case studies demonstrating the fallibility of human representatives for rivers

• Angela María Sánchez-Alfonso and Rana Göksu’s call for the Rights of Nature movement to endorse grounded ways of knowing