Legal rights for animals and habitats called for

A team of futurists and law experts has argued that animals, plants and other non-human life forms should be provided with legal rights, in order to protect them from the devastating impacts of climate change and biodiversity loss.

In a report released this week, the London-based The Law Society and Oxford-based consultancy Jigsaw Foresight said a new legal framework is required that takes into account unprecedented advances in biotechnology, as well as the escalating degradation of the natural world.

"Activity in the biosphere, alongside machine learning and emerging technologies, is creating a new generation of legal activity and ethical questions," said Tara Chittenden, foresight manager at The Law Society.

Some nations have already enshrined the rights of nonhuman animals and even habitats in law. Bolivia recognizes the right of rivers and forests to not be polluted, and in a landmark constitutional ruling in April this year, Ecuador recognized the legal rights of wild animals.

Rights have already been granted and more are being sought in different jurisdictions globally for elephants, trees, rivers, ecosystems, and landscapes, and the report said that similar actions are needed on a local and international scale to prevent biodiversity loss and combat global warming.

"The process and execution of a non-human rights-based framework in international and local law may differ radically from a human rights-based approach," the report said. "For example, if rights were granted to nonhumans or living systems, then questions of liability for damage to the environment, such as climate change or biodiversity loss, arise."

Current animal welfare laws most often concern the prevention of unnecessary suffering. The report's authors suggest that protections could be expanded to include the development of non-humans, providing the right for animals to reach their full cognitive and emotional development. Such laws would have major implications if applied to domesticated animals in agriculture, as they often have their lives significantly curtailed.

Rapid advances in biotechnology also throw up new legal questions, the authors said. There have been major advances in the manipulation of cells, bacteria and viruses for medical and agricultural purposes in recent years, and a new legal framework could prevent such innovations from being weaponized or abused for exploitative ends.

"Along with these innovations come questions of (intellectual property) and ownership, liability, bias, harm and rights," said Chittenden. "These in turn raise critical questions for policy, regulation, law and the legal profession."

Scientists are closer than ever to engineering both the deliberate extinction, as well as the "de-extinction", of entire species, and the report said such advancements generate a host of new legal and ethical questions. For example, scientists have suggested ways in which infertility can be bred into mosquito populations, meanwhile innovations in "resurrection biology" have the potential to bring back extinct species such as the wooly mammoth.