Rights of Nature in Brazil: limits and possible interpretations of the 1988 Constitution

DI LEURA DALLA RIVA – MILENA PETTERS MELO

ABSTRACT – The recognition of Nature as a subject of legal rights became an

important point of inflection for environmental constitutionalism in the

beginning of the New Millennium, notably introduced by Ecuador and

Bolivia Constitutions. This context gave rise to a new Latin American

Constitutionalism biocentric trend. By examining the rights of nature in a

constitutional comparative law perspective, this article aims to analyze the

normative limits and the interpretative possibilities of applying the rights

of nature acquisitive evolution to the Brazilian constitutional system. The

hypotheses to be examined are that: a) nature cannot be comprehended as

a subject of legal rights in Brazil, because the Constitution adopts an

anthropocentric perspective; or b) despite not expressly recognizing the

rights of nature, Brazilian Constitution includes both anthropocentric and

biocentric perspectives, which would allow the recognition of the rights of

nature, as occurs in other Latin American countries. New municipal

legislation recognizing the rights of nature in Brazil seems to reinforce the

biocentric interpretative potential of the 1988 Constitution and provide a

greater incentive to recognize this interpretation in both the legislative and

judicial realms.

KEYWORDS – Latin American Environmental Constitutionalism, rights of

nature, Brazil.

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