Photo by Pennie Opal Plant

Rights of Nature Ethics Tribunal

http://therightsofnature.org/rights-of-nature-tribunal

Also see: Video Judge Tantoo Cardinal on US fracking

http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2014/02/ecuador-tantoo-cardinal-judges-ruling.html

“We the people assume the authority to conduct an Ethics Tribunal for the Rights of Nature. We will investigate cases of environmental destruction, which violate the Rights of Nature.” Prosecutor for the Earth, Ramiro Avila declared during the opening of the world’s first Ethics Tribunal on the Rights of Nature and Mother Earth. The Tribunal held its inaugural session on Friday January 17, 2014 in Quito, Ecuador.

Dr. Vandana Shiva, internationally renowned author, physicist and environmental activist presided over the historic Tribunal together with nine other distinguished judges from seven countries and five continents. Dr. Shiva presented the closing ruling to admit all the nine cases of alleged violations of the Universal Declaration of the Rights of Mother Earth, adopted in Cochabamba on April 20, 2010 and, for Ecuadorian cases, of the Ecuadorian Constitution. The Tribunal will be a permanent platform for hearing and judging cases from around the world.

Tribunal Judges

Dr. Vandana Shiva, President Navdana, India		Tom Goldtooth, Dine’/Dakota, Director, Indigenous Environmental Network, USA Climate Change Case
Alberto Acosta, economist and former President of the Constituent Assembly, Ecuador Yasuni ITT		Elsie Monge, human rights activist and president of CEDHU y FIDH, Ecuador
Tantoo Cardinal, actress (e.g., Dances with Wolves) from the Tar Sands of Canada Hydraulic Fracking		Atossa Soltani, Director of Amazon Watch, USA BP Oil Spill
Blanca Chancoso, Kichwa leader, Ecuador GMOs and Transgenics		Julio César Trujillo, constitutional lawyer for Yasunidos, Ecuador Chevron/Texaco
Cormac Cullinan, lawyer and author (Wild Law), Earth Democracy Coop, South Africa Great Barrier Reef		Enrique Viale, environmental lawyer, Argentina

Prosecutor on Behalf of Mother Earth
and Tribunal Secretariat

Ramiro Avila, Prosecutor for the Earth
Ecuador

Natalia Greene, Secretariat,
Ecuador

Case Presentations

Click images for more:

British Petroleum (BP) Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill	GMOs and Transgenics
Climate Change	Great Barrier Reef, Australia
Chevron/Texaco	Mirador Open Pit Mine
Defenders of Nature	Yasuni-ITT
Hydraulic Fracking (USA)