Erin O'Donnel - "Upholding the Rights of River Persons: Enforcement or Relational Repair?"

Our event on the topic of "Rights for Rivers" took place at the Aquarium am Kottbusser Tor. Assoc. Prof. Dr. Erin O'Donnell spoke about the need to fundamentally change our relationship with bodies of water.

The key takeaways of the day:

  • New legal understanding: Colonial water law views water as a resource. Instead, rivers must be understood as feeling and acting living beings.

  • Legal persons: The legal recognition of rivers allows them to defend their rights in court. An example of this is the Australian Birrarung River.

  • The Spree in danger: The local "Initiative Rights of the Spree" and Steffen Schorcht (Grüne Liga) pointed out that the Spree ecosystem is massively threatened by water consumption, industry, and the consequences of coal mining.

  • Rivers as partners: The goal is to take social responsibility and develop solutions together with the river as a partner.

For those who want to dive deeper into the topic, the complete presentation slides for the lecture can be found here.

Michael Bender