| dc.description.abstract | Recognising the rights of nature is seen by many as the paradigm shift needed to truly embed ecology and the environment into nature-based policy and management solutions to address biodiversity loss, climate change, and sustainable development. The idea of recognising the rights of nature (RoN), grounded in many Indigenous peoples’ ontologies and worldviews, has emerged in philosophical and legal theories supporting a less anthropocentric approach to nature and is often hailed as being a legal revolution that could significantly help to protect the environment or at least lead to reforming legal, governance, and economic systems of natural resource management. This sense of urgency is gaining traction in the context of human-made climate change and the idea that the ‘Anthropocene’ requires a body of environmental laws that does not centre human beings as the main actor in, or beneficiary of, environmental legislation. In 2019, Uganda joined over 30 countries in recognising the rights of nature. However, nature or elements of nature such as rivers, swamps, forests, trees, lakes, and wetlands do not have the ability to defend their rights in courts yet section 4 of the National Environment Act envisions a situation where public-spirited individuals or organisations represent nature in courts of law through PIL. Traditionally, litigation, if not taking the form of criminal prosecution, was brought by an individual or group seeking to enforce or protect private rights. However, as the courts became instruments of social transformation, new forms of litigation started to emerge. Among these forms is Public Interest Litigation (PIL): litigation that seeks to use the legal system to prompt social change and, in some cases, pursue social justice and human rights. This form of litigation seeks court orders and directives that go beyond individual problems and rather aim to promote or protect the public interest. Often, PIL may, through individual cases, highlight a larger problem of public interest. In investigating the effectiveness of PIL in defending nature in Uganda, this thesis discussed issues regarding whether nature has rights, how those rights can be protected, the requisite legal frameworks required to entrench those rights and how PIL has been used or can be used to defend nature. The thesis also offers a comparative analysis of four countries (USA, India, Ecuador and New Zealand). These countries have been very progressive in recognising rights of nature in their law books and the use of PIL in defending nature. It is the position of this thesis that even before 2019, PIL was a great ally in defending nature rights in Uganda, though from an anthropocentric perspective. | en_US |
