BONN, Germany - From November 6th until the 17th, during the 23rd United Nations Convention on Climate Change Conference of Parties (COP23) in Bonn, the world’s nations will reach new agreements on climate change.

 

On November 7th and 8th, the Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature (GARN) will hold the International Rights of Nature Tribunal in Bonn, at the LVR-Landesmuseum with an informative teach-in event to follow. This approach is based on the Universal Declaration of the Rights of Nature, which recognizes the rights of ecosystems to exist and

thrive and the duty of humanity to respect the integrity of their life cycles.

 

We are pleased to announce that the judges of the International Rights of Nature Tribunal will include:

• Tom BK Goldtooth, President of the Tribunal, from the Indigenous Environmental Network, Dine’/Dakota, Turtle Nation, United States

• Osprey Orielle Lake of Women's Earth & Climate Action Network, International (WECAN), United States

• Shannon Biggs of Movement Rights, United States

• Cormac Cullinan Wild Law Institute and author of Wild Law: A Manifesto for Earth Justice, South Africa

• Alberto Acosta former President of the National Constitutional Assembly of Ecuador, Ecuador

• Simona Fraudatario of the People's Permanent Tribunal, Italy

• Fernando "Pino" Solanas Senator from Buenos Aires, Argentina

• Ute Koczy (Urgewald E.V., former German Parlamentarian, Germany)

• Ruth Nyambura (African Ecofeminists Collective, Kenya)

 

The International Rights of Nature Tribunal is a unique, citizen-created initiative to testify publicly about the destruction of the Earth and propose a systemic alternative to environmental protection and current environmental laws.

 

“Recognizing the Earth as a living system of which humans are a part, rather than as human property to beowned and destroyed is a fundamental shift from the way the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) climate process works,” says Tribunal President, Tom BK Goldtooth.  “If we are to find a solution to climate change, we must stop treating the Earth as a commodity.”

 

This two-day event will replicate the judicial process based on the concepts listed above. This esteemed panel will hear cases regarding climate change and false energy solutions, the financialization of nature, lignite mining in Germany, defenders of mother earth (USA-Standing Rock, Russia and the Sámi People), water deprivation in Almeria-Spain, threats to the Amazon (in Ecuador, Brazil and Tipnis-Bolivia), and the impact of free trade agreements and international trade in nature.

 

Two countries, dozens of US communities and ecosystems in 4 countries now have recognized rights and legal standing at various levels. The International Rights of Nature Tribunal is part of an effort to promote a change of consciousness and highlight the need to expand the international legal framework, national laws and courts to ensure

the safety of the planet by preserving biodiversity and respecting ecosystem dynamics.

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The International Rights of Nature Tribunal will be held at -

LVR-LandesMuseum Bonn, Colmantstr. 14-16, 53115 Bonn,

8:00 am to 7:00 pm (0800 to 1900).

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For more information, please visit https://therightsofnature.org/rights-of-nature-tribunal/

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About the Global Alliance for Rights of Nature (GARN) https://therightsofnature.org/

GARN is a network of organizations and individuals committed to the universal adoption and implementation of legal systems that recognize, respect and enforce “Rights of Nature” and to making the idea of Rights of Nature an idea whose time has come.