He Whakaputanga Moana

This is not the first time that an element of nature has been granted legal personality. Since 2017, Whanganui, one of the main rivers on Te Ika-a-Maui (New Zealand's North Island), has had legal personality. Since 2014, the Te Urewera region, covering over 2,000 km, has had similar status.² on the same island. In other countries (India, the United States, Ecuador, Bolivia, Canada, Spain), we can also find lakes, rivers, or areas that have been granted legal personality with varying statuses. However, this is the first time that legal personality has been granted to an animal species.

It may seem strange to us to grant legal personhood to whales. After all, we are used to humans being the subjects of law. The Ocean Declaration is by no means about equating the rights of whales with those of humans. It is worth remembering that it is not only humans who have legal personality; companies and other organizations also have it. Granting legal personality means that certain rights belong to that person. And since they belong to them, everyone else must respect them. If someone causes harm to such a person, they must repair it.

International private law has been shaped on the basis of legal traditions originating in the European cultural sphere. Given this state of affairs, the shortcomings of this legal model are slowly being addressed. I believe that this process will take several more years, and the treaty signed nearly two weeks ago is only one step along this path. Soon, however, it will be obvious to all of us that animals, plants, and other elements of nature have legal personality and, consequently, specific rights. Not so long ago (just over 100 years ago), most people considered the idea of equal rights for all members of our species to be strange. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is only 75 years old.

One of the main topics currently addressed by sustainability departments is the implementation of due diligence processes from the outset, or their improvement. We focus primarily on human rights in these processes. It is worth considering how the granting of legal personality to other living beings or elements of nature will affect the application of due diligence. The processes will be the same, but we will approach their application to the natural environment in a different way. Various elements of the environment will cease to be objects and become subjects with specific rights.

If you want to read more about granting legal personality to whales, I recommend article by Mere Takoko, one of the initiators of the Declaration, and article published in the New York Times after the treaty was signed. Meanwhile, I am waiting for the first company to include a reference to He Whakaputanga Moana in its code of ethics, right next to the references to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Labor Organization conventions.