Bolivia enshrines natural world's rights

[sandinista]

Interesting development in Bolivia. Will have to wait and see how it pans out, but a great step in the right direction. Viva Morales!

Bolivia is set to pass the world's first laws granting all nature equal rights to humans. The Law of Mother Earth, now agreed by politicians and grassroots social groups, redefines the country's rich mineral deposits as "blessings" and is expected to lead to radical new conservation and social measures to reduce pollution and control industry.

The country, which has been pilloried by the US and Britain in the UN climate talks for demanding steep carbon emission cuts, will establish 11 new rights for nature. They include: the right to life and to exist; the right to continue vital cycles and processes free from human alteration; the right to pure water and clean air; the right to balance; the right not to be polluted; and the right to not have cellular structure modified or genetically altered.

Controversially, it will also enshrine the right of nature "to not be affected by mega-infrastructure and development projects that affect the balance of ecosystems and the local inhabitant communities".

"It makes world history. Earth is the mother of all", said Vice-President Alvaro García Linera. "It establishes a new relationship between man and nature, the harmony of which must be preserved as a guarantee of its regeneration."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2 ... od+news%29

[.Morticia.]

I can see it being used by government and big corporations against indigenous communties

[sandinista]

I can see it being used by government and big corporations against indigenous communties

how so, it's been put in place to protect indigenous communities from corporations.

[.Morticia.]

I can see it being used by government and big corporations against indigenous communties

how so, it's been put in place to protect indigenous communities from corporations.

they'll find a way

they all ways do

even if it is by vexacious litigation

[sandinista]

I can see it being used by government and big corporations against indigenous communties

how so, it's been put in place to protect indigenous communities from corporations.

they'll find a way

they all ways do

even if it is by vexacious litigation

Even if "they", I'm guessing you mean multinationals, attempt to overturn by using lawyers, still not sure how the government of Bolivia could use this against it's people when it's been put in place to help the people.

[Pappa]

Cheers sandi. I'll be interested to see how all this eventually pans out.

[Robert_S]

I can see it being used by government and big corporations against indigenous communties

how so, it's been put in place to protect indigenous communities from corporations.

they'll find a way

they all ways do

even if it is by vexacious litigation

Even if "they", I'm guessing you mean multinationals, attempt to overturn by using lawyers, still not sure how the government of Bolivia could use this against it's people when it's been put in place to help the people.

I wonder what Evo would do to a lawyer playing dirty like that...

[sandinista]

I can see it being used by government and big corporations against indigenous communties

how so, it's been put in place to protect indigenous communities from corporations.

they'll find a way

they all ways do

even if it is by vexacious litigation

Even if "they", I'm guessing you mean multinationals, attempt to overturn by using lawyers, still not sure how the government of Bolivia could use this against it's people when it's been put in place to help the people.

I wonder what Evo would do to a lawyer playing dirty like that...

haha, I've seen that clip, hopefully he does the same to any corporate lawyer.

[Seth]

I can see it being used by government and big corporations against indigenous communties

how so, it's been put in place to protect indigenous communities from corporations.

Easily. The law was NOT put in place to protect indigenous communities, it was put in place to elevate "nature" to an equal footing with human beings. "Indigenous communities" are made up of human beings. If "nature" has equal rights with humans, then Bolivia, by its own law, can be compelled to dispossess the "indigenous" people of their right to inhabit, and therefore infringe on the rights of "nature." Big corporations can use the law to force Bolivia to remove "indigenous" populations from areas where desirable natural resources exist, and then pay off corrupt legislators to vote "exemptions" from the law to the corporations.

[Seth]

Interesting development in Bolivia. Will have to wait and see how it pans out, but a great step in the right direction. Viva Morales!

Bolivia is set to pass the world's first laws granting all nature equal rights to humans. The Law of Mother Earth, now agreed by politicians and grassroots social groups, redefines the country's rich mineral deposits as "blessings" and is expected to lead to radical new conservation and social measures to reduce pollution and control industry.

The country, which has been pilloried by the US and Britain in the UN climate talks for demanding steep carbon emission cuts, will establish 11 new rights for nature. They include: the right to life and to exist; the right to continue vital cycles and processes free from human alteration; the right to pure water and clean air; the right to balance; the right not to be polluted; and the right to not have cellular structure modified or genetically altered.

Controversially, it will also enshrine the right of nature "to not be affected by mega-infrastructure and development projects that affect the balance of ecosystems and the local inhabitant communities".

"It makes world history. Earth is the mother of all", said Vice-President Alvaro García Linera. "It establishes a new relationship between man and nature, the harmony of which must be preserved as a guarantee of its regeneration."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2 ... od+news%29

"John Marshall has his ruling, now let him enforce it..." Andrew Jackson

Making a "feel good" law is one thing. Enforcing it is another. Bolivia can't manage to enforce the laws it already has, what makes you think they can enforce this one?

[MrJonno]

There are no rights without paying for them both via behaviour and/or finanically (taxes). As nature or other animals are incapable of either they have no rights but thats not to say people don't have responsibilities towards both (quite possibly as a payment for their own rights).

Rights are a product of the society you live in , no society (including government) no rights

[.Morticia.]

Interesting development in Bolivia. Will have to wait and see how it pans out, but a great step in the right direction. Viva Morales!

Bolivia is set to pass the world's first laws granting all nature equal rights to humans. The Law of Mother Earth, now agreed by politicians and grassroots social groups, redefines the country's rich mineral deposits as "blessings" and is expected to lead to radical new conservation and social measures to reduce pollution and control industry.

The country, which has been pilloried by the US and Britain in the UN climate talks for demanding steep carbon emission cuts, will establish 11 new rights for nature. They include: the right to life and to exist; the right to continue vital cycles and processes free from human alteration; the right to pure water and clean air; the right to balance; the right not to be polluted; and the right to not have cellular structure modified or genetically altered.

Controversially, it will also enshrine the right of nature "to not be affected by mega-infrastructure and development projects that affect the balance of ecosystems and the local inhabitant communities".

"It makes world history. Earth is the mother of all", said Vice-President Alvaro García Linera. "It establishes a new relationship between man and nature, the harmony of which must be preserved as a guarantee of its regeneration."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2 ... od+news%29

"John Marshall has his ruling, now let him enforce it..." Andrew Jackson

Making a "feel good" law is one thing. Enforcing it is another. Bolivia can't manage to enforce the laws it already has, what makes you think they can enforce this one?

this is pretty much what I was thinking

[Seth]

There are no rights without paying for them both via behaviour and/or finanically (taxes). As nature or other animals are incapable of either they have no rights but thats not to say people don't have responsibilities towards both (quite possibly as a payment for their own rights).

Rights are a product of the society you live in , no society (including government) no rights

Perhaps, but rights are not necessarily dependent upon paying taxes or anything else. At the core, rights consist of two things: those freedoms one is willing and able to defend against intrusion by others, and those freedoms that one's culture or society is prepared to recognize as rights.

The former is the position taken by the United States in our founding documents, where they speak of "unalienable" rights endowed by our "creator." This expresses the position that such rights are not created by, granted by, or revocable at the whims of the society. Other societies may hold a different opinion, as may other individuals or groups who choose to assert rights not recognized by their society, and who are willing and able to successfully defend those rights against encroachment by others.

[MrJonno]

There are no rights without paying for them both via behaviour and/or finanically (taxes). As nature or other animals are incapable of either they have no rights but thats not to say people don't have responsibilities towards both (quite possibly as a payment for their own rights).

Rights are a product of the society you live in , no society (including government) no rights

Perhaps, but rights are not necessarily dependent upon paying taxes or anything else. At the core, rights consist of two things: those freedoms one is willing and able to defend against intrusion by others, and those freedoms that one's culture or society is prepared to recognize as rights.

The former is the position taken by the United States in our founding documents, where they speak of "unalienable" rights endowed by our "creator." This expresses the position that such rights are not created by, granted by, or revocable at the whims of the society. Other societies may hold a different opinion, as may other individuals or groups who choose to assert rights not recognized by their society, and who are willing and able to successfully defend those rights against encroachment by others.

In a country of millions you personally can't defend shit if enough people disagree with you, and culture/society doesnt recognise rights it creates them.
There is no creator quotes or otherwise and unalienable is meaningless.

You are not personally born with any rights , you may if you are lucky be born into a society that produces them but every one of them has a cost including that to life.

The price of the right to life in any civilized country is not to take any actions that are immediately likely to seriously hurt or kill others, in the US the cost of the right to life is higher and you must not have killed anyone in the past even if you are not immediately going to kill someone else. Regardless its still a cost that everyone has to pay through in this case isnt revoked by not paying taxes

[Seth]

There are no rights without paying for them both via behaviour and/or finanically (taxes). As nature or other animals are incapable of either they have no rights but thats not to say people don't have responsibilities towards both (quite possibly as a payment for their own rights).

Rights are a product of the society you live in , no society (including government) no rights

Perhaps, but rights are not necessarily dependent upon paying taxes or anything else. At the core, rights consist of two things: those freedoms one is willing and able to defend against intrusion by others, and those freedoms that one's culture or society is prepared to recognize as rights.

The former is the position taken by the United States in our founding documents, where they speak of "unalienable" rights endowed by our "creator." This expresses the position that such rights are not created by, granted by, or revocable at the whims of the society. Other societies may hold a different opinion, as may other individuals or groups who choose to assert rights not recognized by their society, and who are willing and able to successfully defend those rights against encroachment by others.

In a country of millions you personally can't defend shit if enough people disagree with you,

True enough, which is why it's important to have cultural memes that help to protect individual rights.

and culture/society doesnt recognise rights it creates them.

How can society "create" something that has no physical existence? "Rights" are of course a philosophical construct that is not necessarily unique to human beings. It's just that we are able to articulate and codify them, whereas other creatures simply exercise and defend them.

Fundamentally, rights are nothing more than individual liberties or freedoms of action that an organism can defend against intrusion by another organism. Rights are validated by the action of the organism in defense of some freedom of action. Thus, rights actually accrue to an organism as a part of its natural survival functions, and therefore rights are based in evolution and nature, explicated by philosophy, and acknowledged or not acknowledged by a social group, they are not "created" by anything other than the organism exercising some freedom of action.

The extent to which any society of organisms recognizes or acknowledges the validity of some right claimed by an organism through defense of freedom of action depends on the complexity of the social group. In a wolf pack, the omega male does not have the "right" to mate with the alpha female, and that social convention is enforced by the alpha male by forcibly interfering with any attempt by the omega male (or indeed any other male) to mate with the alpha female. The pecking order in a wolf pack further puts the omega male in a very tenuous social position, right down to the order of feeding on a carcass.

The social conventions of wolves create a set of "rights" that are asserted, defended, or vitiated according to how the pack acknowledges the right of an omega wolf to mate. In most cases this means that no such "right" exists for the omega male, although from time to time he may succeed in mating on the sly. But the penalty for doing so, or even attempting to do so, is often death.

There is no creator quotes or otherwise and unalienable is meaningless.

To those of spare wit, this is probably true.

You are not personally born with any rights , you may if you are lucky be born into a society that produces them but every one of them has a cost including that to life.

Actually, I'm born with a set of rights limited only by my ability to claim and defend them against intrusion by others. Society may not acknowledge, recognize or protect those rights I claim, but given sufficient force and ability, my defense of my freedoms of action will prevail as a right that I claim simply because I have the power and the desire to do so. Society may create complex rules about rights it does and does not acknowledge, but no person is bound by the decisions of a social group except by virtue of the coercive force that the social group can bring to bear upon the individual's expression or exercise of his claimed rights. If the individual has superior force, or can convince a sufficient number of the members of the society that the right claimed is beneficial to others, then that freedom of action becomes a right acknowledged, but not created by, the society. In this way, and context, might does indeed make "rights."

Civilization is the process of social groups codifying and organizing a systematic recognition and protection of some rights while vitiating and denying others. Nothing by way of rights is "created" by the society, because the lone individual, living outside any society, is absolutely free and may exercise any freedom he wishes, which is the ultimate expression of the source and nature of individual, unalienable rights. Only when two or more people come together and interact does the notion of "rights" even apply, because the essence of "rights" is a determination by someone of whose rights prevail in the event of conflicts in the free exercise of individual liberty. Society views "rights" merely as an accounting and organizing concept by which conflicts between individuals can be resolved by some method short of pure, naked force and the Law of the Jungle, where the fittest determine who has what rights and who gets what in a society.

But the basic nature of the rights never changes, and is based only and completely in the ability of the individual organism to take actual physical action to achieve some goal or protect some aspect of that organisms existence, like the seeking out and obtaining the exclusive use of food/energy resources necessary for continued existence. Everything else is a complex philosophical or behavioral response to conflicts over resources by multiple individual organisms, and the decision making process by which a society determines which organism prevails in that contest.

The price of the right to life in any civilized country is not to take any actions that are immediately likely to seriously hurt or kill others,

How does that explain stoning adulteresses to death? Or are you now going to claim that such societies are not "civilized" as a way of weaseling out of the discussion?

in the US the cost of the right to life is higher and you must not have killed anyone in the past even if you are not immediately going to kill someone else.

Huh? Please clarify, this makes no sense.

Regardless its still a cost that everyone has to pay through in this case isnt revoked by not paying taxes

Thanks for pointing out the fallacy in your previous claim that rights are conditioned on paying taxes. They aren't, as you demonstrate above.