Published on: 26th July 2026
Authored by: Srishna R
Christ University, Bangalore
Abstract
The emergence of Rights of Nature (RoN) jurisprudence kind of feels like a big shift away from older, more anthropocentric ways of running environmental governance. In a more ecocentric view, nature isn’t just “property” or some kind of resource to be exploited by humans, it’s more like a living something with intrinsic worth, and also it comes with legal rights. In India, you can see courts moving in that direction more and more, with major decisions that basically treat rivers, forests, wildlife, and entire ecosystems as more than objects, they are described as subjects that deserve legal protection. Still, even if there is a lot of judicial excitement, serious problems hang around when it comes to actually making Rights of Nature work in practice, especially on issues like locus standi and liability. Once natural entities get legal personhood, really big questions start to show up. Like who actually represents nature in court, who speaks for it when there’s a dispute? And then, who is responsible when natural entities cause injuries? But then again, how does liability even get split up when ecosystems are treated as legal persons. This article looks closely at how ecocentric jurisprudence has developed in India, it also breaks down the legal complications tied to standing and responsibility, and it suggests a kind of consistent framework to make Rights of Nature operational within the Indian legal system. Overall, the argument is that judicial inventiveness has helped push environmental protection forward, but legislative steps are still needed to clear up uncertainties and put in place governance mechanisms that actually function.
Introduction
The twenty-first century has seen a lot more unease about environmental degradation, climate change, biodiversity decline, and a kind of ecological collapse. Traditional environmental laws, which are mostly set on anthropocentric principles, have not really stopped ecological destruction, mainly because they tend to safeguard nature only when it still benefits human interests. Because of this, scholars and courts in many places have begun to adopt the notion of Rights of Nature, meaning that ecosystems, rivers, forests and other natural entities can be seen as holders of legal rights. In India, environmental jurisprudence has moved in a notable way from an anthropocentric mindset to something more ecocentric. The Supreme Court has stressed that environmental justice needs a shift away from human centred thinking toward acknowledging the inherent worth of non-human life, not just its utility.
The shift, eventually, reached a climax in key decisions of the Uttarakhand High Court. There the Ganga and Yamuna rivers were granted legal personhood and then later that idea was extended to glaciers forests, wetlands and other ecosystems too. Even though these rulings were a major step forward for environmental law, they also brought to light still unclear legal problems about representation, standing, accountability and liability. This article goes into those difficulties and also assesses whether India’s existing legal structure can actually support Rights of Nature in a workable manner, or not.
Theoretical Foundations of Ecocentric Jurisprudence
Ecocentric jurisprudence is kind of rooted in the idea that nature has value on its own, not just because humans can use it or benefit. And unlike anthropocentrism, which tends to put human needs right at the centre of legal and moral thinking, ecocentrism sort of treats ecosystems, species, and even natural processes as worthy of protection for their own sake, even if people get less.
The intellectual basis behind the Rights of Nature push can be linked to Christopher Stone’s famous piece, Should Trees Have Standing? (1972). In it, Stone questioned the usual legal mindset, basically arguing that natural things ought to be seen as rights-holders in law, not merely as objects. Across the globe, the Rights of Nature movement has gathered more momentum via constitutional changes plus court rulings. Ecuador put rights of nature directly into its Constitution in 2008, and New Zealand later granted legal personhood to the Whanganui River. Comparable developments have been reported in places like Colombia, Bolivia, and several local jurisdictions worldwide, though not always in the same form.
In practice, ecocentric jurisprudence is trying to hit about three key aims, namely the recognition of nature’s intrinsic value. Also, it pushes legal standing for natural entities, and it calls for institutional mechanisms that can speak on behalf of ecology, in a real procedural way. In India, the adoption of these themes has happened mostly through judicial interpretation instead of direct legislative action, so courts have been doing a lot of the heavy lifting, rather than parliament setting it out clearly.
Evolution of Ecocentric Jurisprudence in India
Constitutional Foundations
Even though the Indian Constitution does not spell out “Rights of Nature” in so many words, a number of provisions still end up offering a sort of base for environmental safeguarding. Article 48A asks the State to protect and improve the environment, while Article 51A(g) places an obligation on citizens to take care of forests, lakes, rivers and wildlife. In addition, courts have taken Article 21, the right to life, and treated it as something broader—meaning it can include a right to a healthy environment, not just bare survival. Over time, through a kind of judicial creativity, what began as a policy target for ecology gradually turned into a constitutional requirement, sort of like it was “pulled in” and given stronger weight.
Judicial Shift from Anthropocentrism to Ecocentrism
At first, the Indian judiciary leaned toward an anthropocentric outlook, meaning the environment was often protected mainly because it benefits people. Still, the judicial reasoning slowly changed, and the focus started to widen. In T.N. Godavarman Thirumulpad v. Union of India, the Supreme Court noted that environmental justice cannot really happen unless the approach moves away from humans as the sole reference point, and instead accepts ecocentric principles, along with the idea that non-human life carries intrinsic worth. Likewise, in Animal Welfare Board of India v. A. Nagaraja (2014), the Court held that animals have value in themselves, so they deserve protection not merely because they are useful to humans. This decision helped strengthen ecocentric case law, because it stressed species justice and not only human welfare.
Rights of Rivers and Ecosystems
The watershed moment happened in Mohd. Salim v. State of Uttarakhand (2017) and in that case the Uttarakhand High Court declared the Ganga and Yamuna rivers to be living entities, with legal personhood. The Court then appointed certain state officials as guardians, who were meant to take care of the river interests, as if they had standing themselves. Not long after, in Lalit Miglani v. State of Uttarakhand, the Court went further and said legal personhood can extend to glaciers, forests, wetlands, waterfalls and other nearby ecological settings. It was like the scope widened, a bit suddenly, and not just the rivers. Even though later the Supreme Court stayed the working of those judgments, they still keep showing up in India’s ecocentric legal talk, and they continue to be cited as a reference point.
The Challenge of Locus Standi in Rights of Nature Litigation
Traditional Concept of Locus Standi
Traditionally, locus standi meant that a litigant had to show some sort of direct harm that comes from a legal wrong. So, only those whose rights were personally touched, could step into court and ask for relief. But in environmental cases, the damage is sort of diffuse and it reaches people indirectly, plus it can also affect future generations, so the old, traditional standing rule becomes a kind not enough or too narrow.
Expansion through Public Interest Litigation
India changed this idea a lot through Public Interest Litigation, PIL. In those cases, courts loosened up procedural hurdles and allowed activists, NGOs, and concerned citizens to bring matters before the court, often in the name of marginalized groups, and also for environmental interests. That shift really reshaped environmental governance because it opened wider access to judicial remedies. Still, Rights of Nature brings in a slightly different question: if nature itself has rights, then who exactly should speak for it?
Representation of Nature
Recognizing legal personhood kind of forces the idea that someone has to speak and act on behalf of the person, or entity, in this case, and that leads to representation mechanisms, not just recognition alone. Corporations typically move through directors, minors through guardians, and people who are unable to manage their affairs through legal representatives. In a similar way, rivers, forests, and whole ecosystems can be treated as needing guardians who are actually able to assert their rights in practice, not only in theory.
The Uttarakhand High Court tried to address this by appointing government officials as guardians of the Ganga and Yamuna.
(a) Conflict of Interest: Governments are often the very bodies that clear the way for development projects which can seriously endanger ecosystems. So, a State-appointed guardian may end up carrying conflicting duties between economic advancement, and ecological safeguarding, at the same time.
(b) Lack of Community Participation: Local communities, indigenous peoples, and long-standing custodians usually hold more detailed ecological knowhow than bureaucratic institutions do. A number of scholars have pointed out how narrow the community involvement tends to be in Indian Rights of Nature matters.
(c) Absence of Statutory Framework: Unlike New Zealand’s model for the Whanganui River, India does not really have a clear piece of legislation laying out how ecological guardians are appointed, what powers they receive, and how they are held accountable.
Proposed Solution: India should try to use a multi-stakeholder guardianship model that has a bit of everything in it, including government representatives plus, Indigenous and local community members, environmental scientists, and also civil society organizations. With a setup like that, the whole thing would gain legitimacy, and it would lower the chance of conflicts of interest, which is important for day-to-day decisions.
The Liability Conundrum
Nature as a Rights Holder and Duty Bearer
The recognition of legal personhood creates this really fundamental paradox, like rights and responsibilities show up together. Generally, legal persons have both rights and duties. So, if rivers are treated as rights holders, do they also end up carrying liabilities? In the Uttarakhand judgments, the courts explicitly spoke about ecosystems as having rights, duties, and liabilities that are analogous to those of living persons. That way of framing things raised a bunch of practical worries, and it became hard to see how it would actually work day to day.
Liability for Natural Disasters
One of the main objections before the Supreme Court related to liability that might flow from natural disasters. For example, if flooding by the Ganga destroys property, then—if the river counts as a legal person—could the people harmed bring a claim against the river itself? And then there’s the second question, who would actually pay compensation? Would guardians or some other representatives be personally on the hook? Because these uncertainties kept piling up, they played a role in the Supreme Court choosing to stay the Uttarakhand judgments.
Civil Liability
In traditional tort law, it usually gets assumed that legal persons have assets, from which compensation can be taken or collected, if needed. But natural entities, well, they generally do not have independent financial resources on their own. So, if we try to pin liability on ecosystems, that creates both conceptual problems and also very practical difficulties, like it just doesn’t sit right.
Criminal Liability
Criminal liability in most systems depends on mens rea, or a kind of culpable conduct. Natural entities can’t really form intentions, and they can’t act independently, in the legal sense that courts tend to require. Because of that, making rivers, forests, or mountains into criminally liable subjects is basically not logically sustainable.
Vicarious Liability and Guardianship
One possible workaround is to separate the idea of rights from the question of liability, sort of like sorting responsibilities into different boxes. Under such a scheme:
* Nature holds enforceable rights.
* Guardians step in and represent those rights.
* Meanwhile, liability stays with human actors who are actually responsible for the environmental harm. This kind of idea also lines up with how minors, and persons lacking legal capacity, are handled in law, even if the setting feels a bit different at first glance.
Emerging Judicial Trends
Despite setbacks, Indian courts continue embracing ecocentric principles. For instance, the Punjab and Haryana High Court treated Sukhna Lake as a legal entity and said it could be heard in law, while the Madras High Court went a step further and held that “Mother Nature” is a living being, with legal rights attached, or something like that. Also, some newer Supreme Court rulings have tied environmental protection and climate justice to constitutional rights under Articles 14 and 21 matters. Taken together, these turns indicate that ecocentric jurisprudence keeps developing, even though there is no full, comprehensive legislation in place.
Recommendations for Reform
To effectively operationalize the Rights of Nature (RoN) in India, it seems like we really need broad legal and institutional changes, not only minor tweaks.
1. Pass a Dedicated Rights of Nature Act: Parliament should pass a dedicated Rights of Nature Act, and it should clearly recognize ecosystems, rivers, forests, wetlands, and other natural entities as legal rightsholders. The statute ought to spell out what exactly those ecological rights cover, and it should also lay down clear steps, sort of how enforcement will work in practice, including who can initiate actions, and under what conditions.
2. Establish Ecological Guardianship Councils: India should set up Ecological Guardianship Councils at both the national and state levels. These councils should include government representatives, environmental specialists, local communities, indigenous groups, and civil society organizations. This kind of multi stakeholder arrangement helps make sure nature’s concerns are voiced independently and in a more consistent way, rather than being left only to government agencies. That also helps reduce conflicts of interest that can crop up when guardianship is handled by authorities alone, without the outside perspectives.
3. Broaden Locus Standi via PIL Framework: The law would need to sort out the locus standi situation by making it possible for guardians, local communities, environmental organizations and concerned citizens to bring legal proceedings in the name of natural entities. In a way, this could build on India’s comparatively successful Public Interest Litigation, the PIL model, and also push access to environmental justice in a more practical manner.
4. Decouple Rights from Liabilities: Legislative reforms ought to draw a clear line between rights on one side and liabilities on the other. Natural entities should be given enforceable legal rights, but they should not end up carrying civil or criminal liabilities when natural events happen, like floods, landslides, or normal ecological processes. The liability part should stay with human actors, meaning the people whose decisions, conduct, or acts actually cause environmental harm.
5. Create Environmental Restoration Funds: India should set up Environmental Restoration Funds, so that compensation granted in environmental cases can be received and then used properly. These funds should be handled by ecological guardians and they should be used only for ecosystem conservation and restoration. If you link this with stronger community participation and careful scientific oversight, then these reforms start to look like a consistent blueprint for putting ecocentric jurisprudence into practice and for tightening environmental governance across India.
Conclusion
The rise of ecocentric jurisprudence in India, it feels like one of the more transformative things in environmental law. Instead of treating nature as this mere object for taking and using, Indian courts have started to recognize it like a subject of rights. That shift, kind of quietly, pushes back against the old legal way of seeing things, and it moves toward a more sustainable meaning of justice. There are these big, well-known rulings around the Ganga, Yamuna, glaciers, forests, and even “Mother Nature” itself, and they point to a growing judicial focus on ecological wholeness, and also on environmental care. Still, the Rights of Nature movement in India is not really finished. There are unresolved problems, representation is one, standing is another, accountability too, and liability keeps showing up as a blocker for real-world follow through. And because there is no clear statutory direction, everything feels uncertain—like who exactly can speak for nature, and who ends up being responsible when legal personhood is given to natural entities.
To fix that, there has to be a move away from only judicial trial and error, and toward legislative institutionalization. A full Rights of Nature framework would help, one that includes ecological guardianship, shared participation in governance, and liability rules that are defined plainly. With that kind of structure, symbolic recognition might actually become meaningful protection for the environment. Only then can India’s ecocentric jurisprudence really meet its promise—securing justice not just for people, but for the whole ecological community, on which life depends, day after day.
