This presentation explores the relationship between animal rights and the rights of nature, and argues that rights of nature frameworks can serve as a strategic and doctrinal pathway for advancing the legal recognition of animal rights. I examine how these two approaches can converge, particularly in Global South jurisdictions. The presentation highlights the 2022 Estrellita decision of the Ecuadorian Constitutional Court, which recognized an individual woolly monkey as a rights holder under Ecuador’s constitutional rights of nature framework. The case illustrates how constitutional ecocentric provisions can be interpreted to protect individual animals, opening new avenues for legal personhood and multi-species justice.
Speaker: Macarena Montes Franceschini, Harvard Law School & Real Colegio Complutense at Harvard University (RCCHU) Fellow, Harvard University