From the social rule of law to the rule of law of nature?

The question of legal personality of non-human natural entities

Abstract

The article begins by following well-trodden paths about the meaning of person, its etymological origin and historical development, and the advent and scope of the institute of legal personality. He then lists several cases of attribution, in the present century, of legal personality to non-human natural entities, whether based on naturalistic/animistic worldviews or on the idea of a natural contract, and as the only way to save the planet in this epoch of the Anthropocene. From there, the article develops a whole argument against this path and argues that a state of social and environmental/ecological rule of law, with an anthropocentric foundation, based on duties and an ethics of responsibility, dialogical and caring, are the answer to an adequate protection of the environment and nature, while demonstrating that the use of the innovation of the attribution of legal personality to non-human natural entities adds nothing to what is it is carried out today at the level of discourses, norms and legal institutions, in preventive and repressive terms.