A Study on the Rights of Nature to Preserve Sustainable Natural Ecosystems

The Civil Law limits the qualifications to have legal personality to ‘persons (natural persons or corporations).’ However, since the 1970s, the opinion that there is a need to extend the legal qualifications for rights subjects, which are limited to humans, to include nature or natural components has emerged as a major concern in law. This is a discussion about the so-called rights of nature. A representative recent example is the Republic of Ecuador. In September 2008, Ecuador revised its constitution and established a new regulation recognizing the rights of nature, thereby providing a constitutional basis for nature to protect its own right to survival. Meanwhile, Republic of Bolivia became the first country to recognize the rights of nature in law by enacting a law declaratively defining universal rights to the rights of nature in December 2010. And Republic of Colombia does not have provisions on natural rights in its constitution. However, the Constitutional Court and the Supreme Court recognize the existence of natural rights by actively interpreting environmental rights and the relationship between nature and humans from the perspective of ecocentrism. Article 35 of the Constitution of the Republic of Korea also provides for environmental rights. However, this is not intended to recognize nature as a subject of rights, or to protect the intrinsic value of nature itself or the ecosystem. Nature and its components are recognized only as tools for human benefit. However, with this human-centered view of nature, it is impossible to fundamentally resolve today's natural destruction and the resulting climate crisis. Therefore, in order to ensure a sustainable natural ecosystem for future generations, theoretical attempts are underway to grant a certain legal status to non-human nature or natural objects. In this paper, I reviewed the concept of the rights of natural objects other than humans or nature itself among the subjects of nature, as well as domestic discussions and major overseas cases regarding natural rights. And a plan for domestic acceptance of natural rights was sought.