International Tribunal Unveils “Pledge for Mother Nature,” Demands Global Shift Toward Legal Rights for Earth at COP30
By Ekemini Simon
In what observers describe as a defining moment for global environmental governance, the International Rights of Nature Tribunal has issued a historic declaration titled “A New Pledge for Mother Nature,” calling on governments, institutions, and citizens worldwide to legally recognise that Nature has rights just as humans do.
The powerful appeal was made during a side event at COP30, marking the close of the Tribunal’s 6th International Sitting, where judges and environmental leaders from across continents demanded urgent legal and policy reforms to protect the planet’s ecosystems from exploitation and collapse.
The declaration challenges the world to end the extractivist systems that have fuelled biodiversity loss and climate breakdown, asking nations to enshrine the rights of rivers, forests, and oceans in law and end ecocide which is the mass destruction of ecosystems.
“We are all part of the Earth, an indivisible and living community of interrelated and interdependent beings with a common destiny,” the Tribunal stated. “The multiple crises we are experiencing are rooted in the economic, political, legal, and social systems established by industrial, growth-oriented cultures that dominate the world today, including capitalism, patriarchy, sexism, racism, and anthropocentrism.”
The Tribunal said the decision by Brazil to host COP30 is symbolic of the importance of the Amazon, which it described as a vital ecosystem for the planet. It denounced the current and future impacts of extractivism, deforestation, fossil fuel projects, and large-scale mining, calling for the Amazon, its biodiversity, and the Indigenous peoples who inhabit it to be recognised as a subject of rights.
Delivering the verdict, Nnimmo Bassey, co-president and judge of the Tribunal, said that the defence of the rights of Nature is the right path to genuine climate action. He warned that there can be no climate justice without recognising Nature’s rights. The Tribunal also called for a complete phase-out of fossil fuels and a swift transition to renewable energy systems that protect both communities and ecosystems from false solutions designed to enrich financial speculators while worsening climate injustice.
The Tribunal called on the United Nations to adopt the Pledge for Mother Nature as a blueprint for international environmental law, insisting that protecting the Earth is a moral and legal obligation of humanity.
Judges at the Tribunal included Ana Alfinito of Brazil, Nnimmo Bassey of Nigeria, Enrique Viale of Argentina, Shannon Biggs of the USA, Casey Camp Horinek of the Ponca Nation in the USA, Tom Goldtooth of the USA, Princess Esmeralda of Belgium, Cormac Cullinan of South Africa, Patricia Gualinga of Ecuador, Francesco Martone of Italy, Tzeporah Berman of the USA, Ashish Katharine of India, Osprey Orielle Lake of the USA, Pooven Moodley of South Africa, and Felicio Pontes of Brazil.
They collectively said that the survival of humankind is inseparable from the survival of the planet, and that the time has come for the world to move beyond rhetoric to legally protect the rights of Mother Earth.