Frequently Asked Questions

Ocean Rights is the recognition of the Ocean as a living entity with intrinsic value and inherent rights.

But Ocean Rights is about much more than rights!
 
It's about ethics — changing the principles or rules that guide how we decide what is right and wrong, good and bad, or fair and unfair.

It’s about values — integrating diverse values (including Indigenous and cultural values, and intrinsic values) in Ocean governance.

It’s about relationships — shifting the human-Ocean relationship from one rooted in control and exploitation to one rooted in interconnection, care and respect.

And it’s about protection — creating a robust and enforceable governance system that honours humanity’s duties to conserve and restore Ocean health.

Ocean Rights is a movement.

This movement is embedding itself from the local to global levels, where local initiatives (bottom-up) fuel global approaches (top-down) and vice versa. As a result, the full implementation of Ocean Rights involves several strategies that combine legal, policy, governance, economic, educational, scientific and community-based approaches. 

For Pacific and Indigenous cultures, the Ocean has always been much more than a vast body of water; it is kin and ancestor, a living entity integral to their identity and existence. This perspective has existed for millennia, embedded in cultural practices, languages, and rituals that reinforce the Ocean's role as a life-giving force and a central figure in the creation and sustenance of life. In 2017, headlines were erupting. Rivers, forests, and Nature as a whole were being recognised as subjects of rights all over the world. However, only a select few were talking about the Rights of Nature movement within the context of the Ocean. This is why Michelle Bender created ‘Ocean Rights’ – to address this gap and show how the Rights of Nature framework can protect and restore Ocean health.

The United Nations has stressed that to maintain humanity's quality of life, how we view, manage and use the Ocean as a collective must change. In other words, there is an urgent need to rethink humanity’s approach to Ocean governance.

Many Ocean governance frameworks are built on outdated, anthropocentric and colonial perspectives that view the Ocean primarily as a resource for human use, property to be owned and exploited, and a space divided into zones of control. Ocean Rights reimagines this narrative by embracing an understanding long held by many Indigenous and Oceanic communities— where the Ocean is seen as a living, interconnected and self-regulating entity. Thus, Ocean Rights facilitates a shift in the human-Ocean relationship from one of separateness and exploitation to one of holism and care.

Just as societal values evolved to recognise human beings as holders of rights rather than property, Ocean Rights encourages a similar transformation in how we perceive and engage with the Ocean. Societal values and environmental ethics serve as significant, albeit indirect, drivers of policy decisions and economic activity. They influence the effectiveness of our environmental laws and how we manage human activity. For example, if we value how much we can take out of the Ocean while still profiting (the goal of maximum sustainable yield) we will fail to adhere to the best available science and fish at unsustainable levels. This is why we must transform the ethics and values that inform law, while ensuring such laws are enforced. Ocean Rights is one tool we have to do so because it transforms the underlying ethics that guide decision-making.

Yes! The Ocean can (and does) have rights! Recognising Ocean Rights requires acknowledging that the Ocean itself can hold rights, which can be formalised by recognising the Ocean as a subject of rights or legal entity/person through constitutional law, national policies or judicial decisions. Here are just a few arguments for why the Ocean can hold rights:

a. The recognition of an entity as a subject of rights is a concept that is not limited to human persons or constructs. In fact, a legal person has been described as any subject matter other than a human being.

b. Personhood has already been extended to corporations, churches, ships and animals in varying jurisdictions.
 
c. Rights of Nature laws exist in some shape or form in almost 40 countries, including the USA, Ecuador, Uganda, Spain and New Zealand!

d. Furthermore, the concepts of legal personality, legal personhood and rights are flexible concepts and not uniform across legal systems.
 
e. Additionally, many predicate rights on life, or existence— that which is alive and exists has inherent rights.
 
f. The Ocean does not need to bear duties in the same way as human beings; rather, it is the responsibility of States to respect and uphold the Ocean’s rights.

g. Finally, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, an international court, confirmed that the human right to a healthy environment, as an autonomous right, protects elements of Nature, such as the forests and the sea, as legal interests in themselves. The Court further found that the Rights of Nature approach is fully compatible with the general obligation to adopt domestic legislative provisions in order to respect and ensure human rights.

Therefore, it’s not so much about ‘can’ the Ocean have rights, but rather, what inherent rights does the Ocean have?

Ocean Rights and Ecocide Law are two emerging and innovative legal pathways that aim to protect the Ocean. The difference lies in how they do so.

Ocean Rights is rooted in the idea that the Ocean is a living entity with intrinsic value and inherent rights. This requires the Ocean’s interests and needs to be seriously considered in decisions which affect its health (such as through institutional and governance reform), while ensuring that disputes separate ecological harm from the harm to human interests.

Ecocide Law, on the other hand, is rooted in criminal justice and the punishment of actors for actions that cause severe environmental harm (i.e. unlawful or wanton acts committed with the knowledge that there is a substantial likelihood of severe and either widespread or long-term damage to the Ocean). This accountability may take the form of criminal charges, with the aim of deterring future harm through punishment (i.e. prevention).

Neither Ocean Rights or Ecocide Law must be in place for the other to be implemented. However, Ocean Rights can strengthen Ecocide Law by changing the perspective and standards that will inform its understanding, namely the definition of significant harm. Nonetheless, both frameworks are frequently referred to as “two sides of the same coin.” Just like the crime of murder (one side of the coin) prevents infringements of the right to life (other side), Ecocide can help prevent violations of Ocean Rights. Both frameworks are part of a larger movement toward rethinking humanity's relationship with the Ocean, promoting justice not only for human beings but for the ecosystems and species upon which all life depends.

You can learn more and sign the open letter to support Ecocide Law to protect the Ocean by visiting this website!