The Legal Personhood of Water Bodies

🌱 How have the Rights of Nature evolved?

Over the past two decades, “the connections between nature, human beings, and law” have become increasingly recognized globally.[i] The movement for legal ‘Rights of Nature’ started in Ecuador in 2008, “when it enshrined rights of nature in its constitution”.[ii] Over the years, the Rights of Nature movement has been growing by using legal tools to honor “the deep interrelation of all life” and how nature “contributes to the health and integrity of the natural environment”.[iii]

🌱 Why does a river in Canada have legal personhood?

One way in which water, and thus Indigenous Peoples, can be protected, is by granting legal personhood to water.[iv] In 2011, Magpie River, or Mutuhekau Shipu, was the first river in Canada to be granted legal personhood.[v] The river is sacred to the Innu First Nation, who have “depended on it as a major highway, food source, and natural pharmacy for centuries”.[vi] Hydroelectric dam development has, however, disrupted the river’s flow, negatively affecting its biodiversity.[vii] In order to protect the river, “the Innu Council of Ekuanitshit and the Minganie Regional County Municipality declared the Mutuhekau Shipu a legal person in 2021”.[viii] It is one of the many rivers granted legal personhood, “as part of a global, Indigenous-led campaign”.[ix]

🌱 What is the legal personhood of water?

The definition of the legal personhood of water is context specific. That said, water as “a legal person” can broadly be defined as: “where nature as a whole, or a specific natural entity such as a river is formally recognised as a legal person, with all the rights, duties, liabilities and powers of a legal person”.[x] Water can also be considered a “legal subject”, “where nature as a whole, or a specific natural entity, is recognised as the subject of specific, enumerated rights”.[xi] There are also informal variations of recognition in which nature is “recognised as a living or moral person with rights and duties of a living person”, or as a “living entity” that is “recognized in law as being alive, but without legal rights and powers of a legal person, living subject or living person”.[xii] 

🌱 Why is water a public trust in Hawaii?

Hawaii works with the concept of water as a “public trust” for present and future generations.[xiii] Life-giving water was considered sacred and “strong public trust principles” were included in Hawaii’s first Western-style constitution in 1840.[xiv] In Hawaii, “the 1978 Constitutional Convention passed amendments”, which “enshrine[d] resource protection as a constitutional mandate”.[xv] The constitutional mandate includes the State’s obligation “to protect, control, and regulate the use of Hawai’i’s water resources for the benefits of its people” (Article XI, section 7).[xvi] Moreover, in 1987, Hawaii also enacted its Water Code, which establishes “a new framework for water resource management that balanced resource protection with reasonable and beneficial use”.[xvii]

This post has been adapted from a newsletter written by Krisna Baghouzian and Christine Nikander. The newsletter titled “What role do Indigenous rights to water play in sustainable development?” was originally published in “The Just Transition Newsletter” by Palsa & Pulk.

[i] Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Private Law, Rights of Nature. https://www.mpipriv.de/rightsofnature (19.03.2025).

[ii] Patrick Barkham, Should rivers have the same rights as people? https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jul/25/rivers-around-the-world-rivers-are-gaining-the-same-legal-rights-as-people (19.03.2025).

[iii] Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature, Our Mission. https://www.garn.org/ (19.03.2025).

[iv] University of New South Wales Law and Justice Faculty and University of Melbourne Law School, Rivers have rights. So what happens now? https://law.unimelb.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0008/4944752/Rivers-have-Rights.pdf (19.03.2025).

[v] Patrick Barkham, Should rivers have the same rights as people? https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jul/25/rivers-around-the-world-rivers-are-gaining-the-same-legal-rights-as-people (19.03.2025).

[vi] Chloe Berge, This Canadian river is now legally a person. It’s not the only one.. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/travel/article/these-rivers-are-now-considered-people-what-does-that-mean-for-travelers (19.03.2025).

[vii] Kirk O Winemiller et al., Balancing Hydropower and Biodiversity in the Amazon, Congo, and Mekong. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/289532272_Balancing_Hydropower_and_Biodiversity_in_the_Amazon_Congo_and_Mekong (19.03.2025).

[viii] Chloe Berge, This Canadian river is now legally a person. It’s not the only one.. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/travel/article/these-rivers-are-now-considered-people-what-does-that-mean-for-travelers (19.03.2025).

[ix] Chloe Berge, This Canadian river is now legally a person. It’s not the only one. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/travel/article/these-rivers-are-now-considered-people-what-does-that-mean-for-travelers (19.03.2025).

[x] University of New South Wales Law and Justice Faculty and University of Melbourne Law School, Rivers have rights. So what happens now? https://law.unimelb.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0008/4944752/Rivers-have-Rights.pdf (19.03.2025).

[xi] University of New South Wales Law and Justice Faculty and University of Melbourne Law School, Rivers have rights. So what happens now? https://law.unimelb.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0008/4944752/Rivers-have-Rights.pdf (19.03.2025).

[xii]  University of New South Wales Law and Justice Faculty and University of Melbourne Law School, Rivers have rights. So what happens now? https://law.unimelb.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0008/4944752/Rivers-have-Rights.pdf (19.03.2025).

[xiii] D. Kapua’ala Sproat, Water (2010). In The value of Hawai’i: Knowing the Past, shaping the future (eds. Craig Howes, Jon Osorio).

[xiv] D. Kapua’ala Sproat, Water (2010). In The value of Hawai’i: Knowing the Past, shaping the future (eds. Craig Howes, Jon Osorio).

[xv] D. Kapua’ala Sproat, Water (2010). In The value of Hawai’i: Knowing the Past, shaping the future (eds. Craig Howes, Jon Osorio).

[xvi] D. Kapua’ala Sproat, Water (2010). In The value of Hawai’i: Knowing the Past, shaping the future (eds. Craig Howes, Jon Osorio).

[xvii] D. Kapua’ala Sproat, Water (2010). In The value of Hawai’i: Knowing the Past, shaping the future (eds. Craig Howes, Jon Osorio).