“So the first point is inescapable. This is a systemic issue and the responses must be systemic.
Secondly, if anyone came here with any doubts about whether or not human rights and the rights of nature are compatible, I think that they must have been dispelled. Everybody has demonstrated that they are inseparable.
As Chief Seattle is reported to have said so long ago: ‘What befalls the Earth, befalls the children of the Earth.’”
Cormac Cullinan, President of the Paris Tribunal, presents conclusions of proceedings of the 2-day International Rights of Nature Tribunal in Paris, Saturday December 5, 2015.
Courtesy of Citizens’ Voice at the Paris Climate Talks
Closing Statement by Cormac Cullinan, President
International Rights of Nature Tribunal
Ladies and Gentlemen,
I think you will all agree with me that over these last two days we have been extraordinarily fortunate to participate in these proceedings. These proceedings will, we hope, prove not only to have been extraordinary in terms of what we have heard and the evidence that has been led but also to be historic.
Formal establishment of truly International Tribunal
The Universal Declaration of the Rights of Mother Earth, which as you heard was approved in Cochabamba, Bolivia in 2010, has created a manifesto for earth justice for organizations and people all over the world. What has happened here today and yesterday has been the consolidation of that effort by the establishment of the Tribunal – the formal establishment the Tribunal because it already existed – by the People’s Convention which entered into force yesterday. This represents a significant step forward because it is an example to people everywhere how, when the governments of the world failed, we can step forward as people and begin to create the world that we want to see. We can create People’s institutions; we can enter into agreements ourselves and begin to create the future that we want.
More than 80 people from many different countries of the world have participated in these proceedings as judges,