Summary
On May 24, 2024, a proposal was submitted to the Amsterdam City Council to recognize Rights of Nature within the City of Amsterdam. The initiative proposal titled “Protect what you hold dear: give rights to nature”, requests the municipal executive: (1) To declare that non-human life around us has interests. And to incorporate these interests into future relevant policy documents; (2) To investigate how the rights and/or perspectives of Amsterdam’s natural environment can be anchored in decision-making and all new policies to be developed within the City of Amsterdam.
Furthermore, the initiative proposes “To monitor the Rights for Nature movement and: a. To declare the active support of the City of Amsterdam for this movement; b. To investigate, when it is legally possible to grant rights to nature, how this could be implemented in the City of Amsterdam; c. To proactively disseminate this message at appropriate times to the Amsterdam Metropolitan Area (AMA), the Province of North Holland, and the national government.”
The proposal states that “Although it is not possible for Amsterdam to single-handedly grant legal personality to nature, it is important that we recognize the value of nature in our democracy and that we seek ways to hear the non-human living world and include it in decision-making.
The Amsterdam City Council will discuss the initiative proposal in committee on 4 June 2025.
Suggested Citation:
Kauffman, Craig, Catherine Haas, Alex Putzer, Shrishtee Bajpai, Kelsey Leonard, Elizabeth Macpherson, Pamela Martin, Alessandro Pelizzon & Linda Sheehan. Eco Jurisprudence Monitor. V2. 2025. Distributed by the Eco Jurisprudence Monitor.https://ecojurisprudence.org/initiatives/amsterdam-netherlands-proposal-for-rights-of-nature/.
When using our data, please follow the FAIR and CARE Principles for data governance outlined in our Ethics Statement. We are doing our best to be correct in the information we provide, but if you notice any omission or inaccuracy, please report this to us immediately at info@ecojurisprudence.org so we can correct it.
Eco Jurisprudence Tracker is licensed under CC BY 4.0
