Environmental protection: abandonment of legal anthropocentrism and evolution of Law

Law is not static, but continuously evolves. In environmental matters, this evolution is going in the direction of abandoning legal anthropocentrism. The author observes the success in various places on the Planet of recognising nature or its entities as subjects or people, with real rights. For this purpose, he first analyses several of these experiences. This new way of thinking about nature and its entities takes place at a constitutional, legislative and jurisprudential level. In the light of examining the phenomenon, the author reflects on the fact that now is the right time to overcome the anthropocentric vision of law. He rests this claim on two factors. The first is constituted by the change in the way in which the human being conceives himself and the author speaks in this regard of Homo Ecologicus. The second factor is closely related to today's societies. The openness towards the equal dignity of every people that makes up each Country has led to the emergence of the environmental sensitivity of the indigenous tradition in political and legal debates. Furthermore, this change of perspective would not have been possible without a widespread environmental sensitivity within society and if the provision of the rights of non-human natural entities had not been considered an effective response to the environmental issue.