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This report explains the project questions, results, contributions, and lessons learned of the Formas-funded project Realizing Rights of Na-ture: Sustaining Development and Democracy. The project investi-gated claims about nature’s rights which collectively underscore a central uncertainty: what would it mean for a liberal representative democracy to recognize nature’s rights? The report notes its conclu-sions, which suggest that nature’s rights is not necessarily incompati-ble with this form of government. The project’s contributions were to demystify nature’s rights by placing this legal strategy in a compara-tive and historical perspective, to focus attention on the relationship of nature’s rights to the national interest, and the need to account for urban nature when thinking about the potential of nature’s rights.

Scholars have urged the examination of how Nature’s rights may link with other rights- claims to impact political struggles between local communities and central governments over decision-making authority. This article examines two court cases that were decided by Ecuador’s Constitutional Court in order to shed light on the ability of Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities in Ecuador to employ the rights of nature in their efforts to contest the approval of extractive projects. The article contends that conjunctions be- tween nature’s rights, human rights and the precautionary principle have challenged three patterns of knowledge creation and use that have supported the primacy of the national interest. The first is the presumption of co-existence of Indigenous land uses and mining projects. The second is the state’s power to classify land based on the level of protection for which it is eligible. The third is the treatment of differentiated actors as equivalent stakeholders. 

A growing number of jurisdictions have recently granted rights to nature. This article places the potential disruptions generated by this legal development in historical, comparative perspective. The questions that scholars are asking about rights of nature (RoN) are similar to many of those asked by historians and legal scholars about human rightsholders. These questions arise from some of the tensions within liberalism. Placing these tensions in comparative context offers a framework with which to interpret RoN developments. Doing so demonstrates, first, the capacity of the existing liberal order to incorporate challenges into already functioning structures and, second, that such efforts to manage the claims of new subjects of rights nonetheless can transform relations. In our conclusion, we argue that a comparative perspective may allay the tendency to exoticise rights of nature by examining the extent to which their development in sometime contentious and sometimes complementary relationship with democratic institutions is reflected in historical efforts to define and make meaningful the rights of human rightsholders.

Denna antologi innehåller texter baserade på några av de presentationer som hölls vid en konferens anordnad av Institutet för utbildningsrätt (IfU) vid juridiska institutionen, Uppsala universitet, med temat: Barnet i skolan – om rättigheter, aktörskap och tillgänglighet. En del av bidragen är resultat av forskningsprojekt, medan andra är mer reflekterande och erfarenhetsbaserade.

Bland annat behandlas vad som händer med skolan när barnkonventionen blir lag, lärares dilemman mellan krav och förväntningar vid bedömning och betygsättning i gymnasiet, samt anpassningen av nationella prov för elever med normbrytande funktionalitet ur ett rättssäkerhetsperspektiv. Även barns rätt till utbildning i fritidshem utifrån barnkonventionen, motiv bakom förlängningen av skolplikten 1950 respektive införandet av obligatorisk förskoleklass 2018, samt elevers rätt till inflytande enligt finska skollagen och huruvida det uppfyller barnkonventionens krav avhandlas. Slutligen diskuteras hur skolor kan hjälpa självsaboterande pojkar att förbättra sina skolresultat.

Sammantaget speglar dessa bidrag en del av den bredd av ämnen som behandlades på konferensen, rörande barns rättigheter och hur dessa säkras i skolans värld.

Can nature have rights, or is this idea bound to be considered odd, frightening or even laughable as Christopher Stone stated when arguing for nature’s rights in his seminal article in 1972? The idea is based on the view that nature should be allowed to exist on its own terms and not on man’s. Expectations are that such an approach will become a tool for changing the view of the relationship between man and nature. In modern Western legal systems however, nature is primarily seen as property. Property usually has one or more owners with far-reaching rights to dispose of it. The idea that nature has rights is therefore new and radical; it represents a shift in the balance of power between humans and nature. The purpose of this article is to investigate how the current Swedish constitutional protection of nature may relate to the dea of the rights of nature. How is nature, environment, climate and nature negotiated in the existing legal and constitutional framework? With examples from the Cementa and the Girjas cases we discuss how the constitutional issues involved are legally interpreted and politically negotiated in ways leading to environment and nature being downplayed. Examples discussed are the Cementa and the Girjas cases, which both led to Government actions and interventions. The question is if nature would have a stronger position, were it given rights of its own, and if could fit in the constitutional system or. Or is it a strange bird?