Sustainable development will need to consider environmental justice and the rights of non-human animals.

OVERVIEW

More and more decision-making will need to consider the interdependent needs of human and non-human entities, expanding the scope of rights for what and for whom we seek justice. Indigenous peoples have always recognized the inseparable relationship between humans and Mother Earth. Slowly, governments and companies are starting to acknowledge the rights of nature and to explore ways to incorporate multi-species considerations into decision-making. But who can represent the rights of all life forms, future generations - even robots or AI, if they became sentient – and how?

SIGNALS

Dismayed by ecological loss and climate change, many people are coming to acknowledge how deeply human and non-human entities depend on each other to survive and flourish. Indigenous peoples have always recognized this interdependence; it is they who preserve about 80% of the world’s remaining biodiversity. Now
an increasing number of countries, including Ecuador, Brazil and Bolivia, are recognizing the rights of nature in their constitutions or laws. Ireland could become the first EU member to do so. Some court judgments are giving primacy to environmental considerations, like Estonia’s Supreme Court ruling that environmental interests outweigh cultural ones in deciding on a dam removal.

The idea of rights for nature and representation for animals once seemed far-fetched, but no longer. Not only humans use language, for example; sperm whales’ communication is more expressive than we thought, but who speaks for them? Two new coalitions, More Than Human Rights and Animals in the Room have joined the movement to give legal rights and representation to ecosystems, natural features and non-human species. Artists imagining multi-species futures, and funding grants for “more than human” design, show how philosophers, scientists and artists are expanding this realm of thinking. The Plantiverse art project gives plants a voice, votes and capital.

Some even argue that robots - artefacts that share our fragile planet - should have rights, too, because mistreating them would degrade our standards of social behaviour. If robots and AI become
truly sentient, or conscious, their case for rights will surely strengthen. Even today, AI can mimic human emotions: the Project December chatbot can simulate conversations with the dead; people are becoming emotionally reliant on chatbot companions; and the rapid-fire conversations and emotional expressiveness of the newest ChatGPT model makes it even more lifelike. Is AI already a digital “species”? 

The question of exactly how to represent in human decision-making the rights of all life forms, natural resources and future generations is hard. But people are trying nonetheless. The UK government is using more-than-human perspectives to adopt a futures approach to freshwater planning for the first time. UNDP’s novel Blue Marble thinking puts the health of the planet first, rethinking the role of humans.

Non-human stakeholders in business, from wildlife to climate to geological features, are growing, with Nature now represented on at least five corporate boards. Courts worldwide are adopting a future-generation perspective in rulings that insist natural resources be preserved for their benefit, like Colombia’s Supreme Court order that the Amazon be protected from deforestation. Some people would agree; 41% of respondents in the latest World Values Survey (2017-2022) prioritized environmental protection over economic growth, up from 17% in 2010-2014 (though with significant variations by country).

SO WHAT FOR DEVELOPMENT?

Care and respect for nature and non-human species helps preserve our planet for future generations. As urbanisation continues, city planning that includes wildlife corridors and more green spaces supports biodiversity and the coexistence of various species – as urban planning in Singapore, Brazil, Mexico, Colombia and China shows.

Yet humans’ interaction with other species is not just about environmental protection, or even human wellbeing. As we understand more about animals’ ability to think, feel and communicate, and as science expands our horizons beyond present beings, this is increasingly an issue of justice and rights. More powerful AI presents new ethical and legal dilemmas about potential rights for AI, especially as the prospect of artificial general intelligence approaches. Though granting legal personhood to AI systems remains speculative, addressing the legal challenges of potential AI consciousness can help set ethical boundaries for the future.

Advanced AI and biotech could enable us to communicate with non-human species in the future.  Might we then see AI-powered “interspecies diplomacy” emerge, transforming how we resolve conflicts between humans and nature? A step further: if and when extraterrestrial life were discovered, it would require new forms of inter-species interaction and communication beyond what we know today. This will pose ethical challenges as well as technical ones.

To better deliver multi-species justice in all its potential forms – including what that means for our human rights - philosophers, and scientists familiar with other species, may need to become more deeply involved in policymaking. Taking non-human interests seriously as claims of justice “means there is a moral and political obligation for our political and legal systems to take those interests into account when making decisions. They cannot be dismissed simply because they are inconvenient or costly… attending to them is not a matter of charity or generosity.”