Teresa Vicente: "People know that the Mar Menor has rights because they have seen it die"

• Legislation Own rights to remove the Mar Menor from the UCI

• Economy The decline of the Mar Menor: an ecological disaster with a cost of 4,150 million

The Mar Menor lives, once again, one of its most delicate moments.

The latest rains have increased the supply of nutrients from agriculture that come through runoff.

It rains on wet, because the situation has not been reversed and now, on top of that, the ground is soaked.

The level of the Campo de Cartagena aquifer exceeds sea level, flooding the precious irrigated fields and discharging its waters with fertilizers on the salty lagoon.

The ova, an algae, has taken advantage of the breeding ground for the coming disaster to grow uncontrollably.

The Spanish Institute of Oceanography warns about it in its latest report.

The thing looks very bad.

The institution has warned this week of the risk of a new and imminent episode of "

."

And, in the midst of this storm, of this sustained ecocide, only one voice brings good news.

It is that of Teresa Vicente, professor of philosophy of law at the University of Murcia, director of the Chair of Human Rights and Rights of Nature of this institution and promoter of the Popular Law Initiative (ILP) that asks that the Mar Menor have their own rights.

Her project advances and she is not alone.

She has exposed it even at the UN, always accompanied by those 640,000 signatures that ask for the legal personality of the ecosystem to be recognized and for the damage to be repaired.

How did the idea of ​​the Popular Law Initiative (ILP) come about to give rights to the Mar Menor? The idea has come a long way.

I have been working since the late 1980s, when I did my doctoral thesis, on the new paradigm of ecological justice, which is where the rights of nature come from.

In 2019, the Center for Justice and Climate at the University of Reading gave me a grant to study cases where ecosystems had already been given legal personality and rights.

I took three basic models, I studied their sentences and their laws.

Upon returning, the rector of the University of Murcia, who is also a lawyer, was interested in the study.

Until then, I was the director of the Human Rights Commission of the University of Murcia.

And I told him that he couldn't continue being that because that was obsolete.

We cannot talk about Human Rights without recognizing that nature has rights.

We have to talk about Human Rights and Rights of Nature.

The legal study on how to give legal personality to the Mar Menor was carried out later, in May 2020, and emerged in the group of the Legal Clinic of the Faculty of Law of the University of Murcia that I direct.

In the legal clinic, studies are carried out to make them a reality.

Problems are solved to win them in court. What ways are there to give rights to an ecosystem and which one has been chosen for the Mar Menor? It can be done through judicial and parliamentary channels.

In Reading I studied two legal paths: the jurisprudential path, which is the judgment of the Atrato River (Colombia), an amazing legal lesson;

and the parliamentary one, that of the Whanganui River (New Zealand),

which is also very beautiful, but it is not within the framework of our law, so it is more difficult to understand.

The road that is most similar to ours is that of Lake Erie (which is between the United States and Canada), which is the parliamentary route. What will change for the Mar Menor when it obtains legal personality? It is a paradigm shift.

Until now, the most advanced legal model we have had is that of social rights, the rights of human beings.

We got that after World War II.

In this model, only people have the right.

Nature is an object that is seen as a resource.

The prevailing economic model is based on unlimited progress.

But the latest IPCC report is devastating.

It clearly says

that this economic model of unlimited exploitation of resources and accumulation of wealth goes against the climate and the planet.

And this is one of the reasons why since the Paris Agreement we have not achieved anything.

Let's get worse.

We have had nature protection laws at an international level and, even so, we are collapsing all ecosystems, such as the Mar Menor, which has the highest international protection figures.

That nature has rights is what the United Nations calls the Jurisprudence of the earth or ecological mandate.

Until now, the laws of nature are regulated in parliaments.

And if a group comes that has no idea what an ecosystem is, or it doesn't suit them, because what suits them is an economic model like the one in the Region of Murcia,

that goes from being a semi-desert area to becoming the garden of Europe (with jobs that give votes), that group destroys the entire ecosystem.

But, if the ecosystem has rights, it will no longer be able to do so.

By this I do not mean to say that, if we give rights to the lagoon, everyone will respect it.

Although we give rights to the Mar Menor, not everything is solved.

But it does mean that we are going to be on another level.

Equality comes from recognizing that human beings are not the only inhabitants of the planet.

With nature we cannot do what we want because it is not fair, nor is it scientific, nor is it ethical.

We share life with other beings.

And they are what make our lives possible.

This is made very clear by the IPCC report, which in one sentence says: "The Earth will go on without us,

within the program of the rights of nature of the secretary general.

What we have done is unite with this entire movement and with all the cases in the world in which they have already recognized it and are winning trials.

In this United Nations program, all states are building, from the legal, political and economic point of view, a new stage that focuses on recognizing rights to nature.

It has to be compatible with the rights that companies have already recognized since the 19th century, and the rights of human beings in the universal sphere, since the 20th century. Give me an example of how the rights of nature already workEcuador, speaking in In legal terms, it has the most advanced Constitution in the ecological sense.

It recognizes the rights of nature,

which is what the European Union is trying to do now with this Charter of Fundamental Rights of Nature.

We see the practical consequence with the Vilcabamba River, which has suffered severe contamination.

And, when he went to court, on one side was the lawyer for the multinational company responsible for its contamination and the Vilcabamba River on the other. If the Mar Menor goes to trial, who will be its representative? A lawyer.

It is incredible that we have reached the point where we see normal that any commercial entity has rights, that a lawyer defends their interests, but we do not understand that an ecosystem has them, which is the basis of life, and that lawyers can defend them.

Legal personality has two parts: legal capacity,

which is their bill of rights (for the Mar Menor it is the right to resilience or the right to recovery);

and the capacity to act (those who defend these rights, which are three).

The rights of the Mar Menor will be defended by a group of independent scientists (almost all those who were part of the Mar Menor Commission left due to political pressure);

guardians and lawyers.

The lawyers will do what they are told by the doctors of the planet (who are the scientists) and the guardians.

Anyone can report.

He would tell the group of guardians and they would tell the group of scientists so they could prepare their defense with a lawyer.

The legal novelty is that, as in the case of the Vilcabamba River, a lawyer defends his rights.

It is not like now, that what you defend in a lawsuit is whether or not a company has been granted a concession,

but in your performance you do not listen to the law of nature.

Now, the judge could say that, even if you have a license, and we will see later who has given it to you, you have damaged a right and rule in favor of the Mar Menor. In the judgment of the Atrato river (Colombia), the judge condemns the action of a whole series of ministries and public institutions.

How would that work here? That's another way.

The sentence of the Atrato is with which his rights are recognized.

That sentence says: I am going to give rights to the Atrato and all those who have said that those rights should not be respected, have done it wrong.

That has been the struggle of a people to whom, for many years, the administrations said no.

Like us with the Mar Menor, who told us that giving it rights was impossible, that it couldn't be done.

With the Mar Menor we have been looking the other way for decades.

Suddenly, society said enough is enough.

What changed? The most profound change is that of the mentality of the people, which is what we see now in the Mar Menor.

People already know that the Mar Menor has rights because they have begun to listen to its language.

It is the language of a suicide.

When a person takes his own life, people around him always say: "He gave signs that I didn't understand."

Nature has a language.

That we do not know how to listen to it is something else.

But that the fish commit suicide because they don't even have oxygen, that has been understood by everyone.

This is what has caused the change of consciousness, an awareness and an environmental ethic that perhaps Murcian society, being conservative, did not have.

Because I had assumed that nature was what the majority group in power said.

But now the people no longer believe that story.

The people know that the Mar Menor ecosystem has rights of its own.

That it has a law that has not been listened to and that has reached the extreme of the suicide of its inhabitants.

That is the deepest change.

People know that the Mar Menor has rights because they have seen it die. The ILP started with the country surrounded by the pandemic.

Even so, they asked for 500,000 handwritten signatures. How did they do it? Nobody gave a penny for us.

When they told us that, in Madrid, the Central Electoral Board had the specifications ready, they had to write us a letter so that we could give it to the police because they would not let us leave Murcia.

We entered the period for collecting signatures, it took up to a month,

and we didn't have the sheets.

It was crazy, but we did it.

We even had to go back to the Central Electoral Board to get more forms signed, because the people were crazy.

You can't imagine the number of people who asked us for them, from all over Spain, student representatives, a lot of organizations not only environmentalists, but cultural, sports, doctors, children's associations, teachers.

We are heroes.

We will go down in history for collecting 500,000 signatures in the midst of Covid. What does it mean to you that the Mar Menor ILP is in Congress? It has ceased to be a popular initiative and has become a Congressional bill.

By an overwhelming majority, it is already processed as a law.

And for me, who represent those almost 700,000 people who signed the ILP (they took 640,000 to Congress,

but more boxes arrived at the University with signed specifications that we couldn't wait to pick them up), this is a huge joy.

We never thought it was impossible, as was said.

The Congress of Deputies opened the door for us from the beginning, when we presented it.

And we went with the illusion of being the voice of the Mar Menor.

We have done it a lot of damage, but it has the right to live. What repercussion will this law have on other ecosystems in Spain? It is an important precedent that paves the way for this new legal stage.

It is of great help.

Any other ecosystem could copy it.

In Doñana they hope to see the result to also request legal personality.

All ecosystems of great ecological value and that are in danger will be added to this new model.

this is a huge joy.

We never thought it was impossible, as was said.

The Congress of Deputies opened the door for us from the beginning, when we presented it.

And we went with the illusion of being the voice of the Mar Menor.

We have done it a lot of damage, but it has the right to live. What repercussion will this law have on other ecosystems in Spain? It is an important precedent that paves the way for this new legal stage.

It is of great help.

Any other ecosystem could copy it.

In Doñana they hope to see the result to also request legal personality.

All ecosystems of great ecological value and that are in danger will be added to this new model.

this is a huge joy.

We never thought it was impossible, as was said.

The Congress of Deputies opened the door for us from the beginning, when we presented it.

And we went with the illusion of being the voice of the Mar Menor.

We have done it a lot of damage, but it has the right to live. What repercussion will this law have on other ecosystems in Spain? It is an important precedent that paves the way for this new legal stage.

It is of great help.

Any other ecosystem could copy it.

In Doñana they hope to see the result to also request legal personality.

All ecosystems of great ecological value and that are in danger will be added to this new model.

And we went with the illusion of being the voice of the Mar Menor.

We have done it a lot of damage, but it has the right to live. What repercussion will this law have on other ecosystems in Spain? It is an important precedent that paves the way for this new legal stage.

It is of great help.

Any other ecosystem could copy it.

In Doñana they hope to see the result to also request legal personality.

All ecosystems of great ecological value and that are in danger will be added to this new model.

And we went with the illusion of being the voice of the Mar Menor.

We have done it a lot of damage, but it has the right to live. What repercussion will this law have on other ecosystems in Spain? It is an important precedent that paves the way for this new legal stage.

It is of great help.

Any other ecosystem could copy it.

In Doñana they hope to see the result to also request legal personality.

All ecosystems of great ecological value and that are in danger will be added to this new model.

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