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It's also an acknowledgement that the anglo-saxon way of law is not the only way.
by disordinary 7y ago
It's also an acknowledgement that the anglo-saxon way of law is not the only way.
- wahern 7y agoI'm not quite sure what your premise is: whether giving a river personhood is novel or not novel in Anglo law. But FWIW granting inanimate things a legal personality (with rights and even duties!) has a long history not only in English Common Law but also the Western legal tradition back to the Ancient Greeks.[1] I doubt the practice is confined to the Western legal tradition as it has immense practical utility and is an obvious hack to most any legal system. [1] See, e.g., Lawrence B. Solum, Legal Personhood for Artificial Intelligences, 70 North Carolina Law Review 1231, 1239 (1992) (https://scholarship.law.unc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3447&context=nclr https://scholarship.law.unc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=...)
- disordinary 7y agoThe article goes into detail about how the river is a living thing in Maori culture.
- pyuser583 7y agoBeing granted a legal status under an Anglo Saxon legal code that is frequently granted to banks, charities, and governments.
- disordinary 7y agoSure, but that is only a convenience the concept is that the river has it's own identity comes from local tradition. The law was recommended by the Waitangi tribunal which is a body that redresses historical grievances by Iwi. Not only is the river now it's own entity which is not owned by anyone local Iwi received $80 million from the government and a $30 million dollar fund to improve the health of the river.