Animals and Nature as New Subjects of Rights: A Study of the most Relevant Judicial Decisions in Colombia

Abstract

This paper is a review of international and national case law aimed at presenting and evaluating the considerations within Colombian rulings that have opened a path toward the recognition of new subjects of rights, and of foreign rulings used as grounding for the former. In order to do this, we (i) make conceptual clarifications of the legal terms of the discussion; (ii) we review international case law precedents; (iii) we review relevant Colombian case law; and (iv) we present additional considerations to each ruling, as conclusions, about the main challenges or problems found.

Keywords

• new subjects of rights
• animal rights
• rights of nature