Switzerland Parliamentary Postulate: granting glaciers legal personality

Summary

On 15 December 2017, Swiss National Council member Lisa Mazzone (Green Party), together with 10 co-signatories, filed a postulate requesting the Federal Council submit a report “on the question of whether it might be appropriate to grant Swiss glaciers legal personality and to establish legal avenues that would allow violations of these legal persons’ rights to be addressed in court.”

Jurisprudential Framing
Proponents argued that Swiss glaciers are an integral part of the country’s identity and possess a unique natural heritage value that is deeply important to the Swiss population. They emphasized the existential threats Swiss glaciers are facing: according to scientific assessments, half of the glaciers counted in 2000 are projected to disappear by 2050, and almost all will have vanished by the end of the century. The National Council members noted that their disappearance pose significant risks for nearby communities, including increased erosion, flood hazards, and landslides caused by melting glaciers.

In their reasoning, Lisa Mazzone and her co-signatories pointed to examples from the global rights-of-nature movement they were inspired by: the New Zealand Parliament granting the Whanganui River the status of a living entity, and the High Court of Uttarakhand in India recognizing the legal personhood of glaciers, rivers, and ecosystems.

Legal Proceedings
On 14 February 2018, the Federal Council recommended rejecting the postulate and explained its reasoning as follows:

“From a legal perspective, Swiss glaciers are considered “ownerless and public objects” under Article 664 of the Swiss Civil Code (CC; SR 210). As “public objects”, they are subject to cantonal law (Article 664 para. 3 CC and Article 78 of the Swiss Constitution). Under Swiss law, mere existence alone does not confer legal personality. Legal personality is inherently tied to a natural person as an individual and to the exercise of the individual’s civil rights, that is, to their social life (see Articles 11–19 CC).

The question of whether objects can be granted legal personality was already debated in 2002 during the introduction of the new Article 641a CC regarding animals. This possibility was ultimately rejected, as it was seen as incompatible with the Swiss legal system. Moreover, it is difficult to imagine how granting legal personality would meaningfully improve the protection of glaciers”.

Furthermore, the Federal Council noted that the vast majority of Swiss glaciers are already located within protected areas and must therefore be preserved in accordance with the Federal Act on the Protection of Nature and Cultural Heritage. The Federal Council also stressed that Swiss glaciers are protected under cantonal laws, as well as through several specialized laws. In view of this, the Federal Council did not consider a detailed report on this question to be necessary.

The postulate was closed in December 2019 because it was not debated in the National Council within the statutory two-year period.

Resubmission
In December 2020, National Councillor Delphine Klopfenstein Broggini (Green Party) submitted Postulate 20.4497, which was nearly identical to the 2017 postulate. The Federal Council again recommended rejection, referring to its earlier position of February 2018. The postulate was closed on 16 December 2022 because it was not debated in the National Council within the statutory two-year period.

Analysis

The initiative on the legal personhood of Swiss glaciers demonstrates that advancing legislative action requires well-founded legal arguments. Simply resubmitting an identical postulate without engaging with the reasoning previously expressed by the Federal Council is unlikely to achieve meaningful progress on rights of nature.

This context emphasizes the importance of substantiated arguments that integrate legal reasoning with scientific evidence, particularly given that the Federal Council has not fully accounted for the clear discrepancy between scientific projections and the effectiveness of the Swiss legal framework in safeguarding the country’s glaciers, as illustrated by the later collapse of the Birch glacier, which buried the village of Blatten in the Canton of Valais in 2025.

Furthermore, the Federal Council’s view that granting legal personhood to glaciers is incompatible with the Swiss legal system – because glaciers are considered “ownerless and public objects” and only entities with an “inherent purpose” can be granted legal personality – is not entirely convincing and should be questioned, especially in the context of human-caused climate change.

Glaciers are persistent bodies of ice that fulfill essential ecological, hydrological, and cultural functions. They are specialized habitats supporting cold-loving microorganisms, algae and other species. The protection of the living communities they sustain, including nearby human settlements, further strengthens the case for enhanced legal protection of Swiss glaciers through the recognition of their legal personhood. These functions can be understood as an “inherent purpose,” analogous to that of other legal persons, such as corporations or foundations, which are granted legal personality to safeguard specific interests. Accordingly, it would be entirely up to the legislator to amend Article 664 of the Swiss Civil Code and explicitly recognize glaciers as legal persons under Swiss law. Such recognition can be grounded in Art. 2 para. 2 and Art. 78 para. 4 of the Swiss Constitution, which mandates the protection of animal and plant life and their natural habitats, thereby providing a constitutional basis for safeguarding glaciers through legal personhood.

This approach aligns with the reasoning of the Federal Supreme Court. The Court indicates that non-human entities can, in principle, be recognized as rights-holders under Swiss law. In BGE 147 I 183, para. 8.2, the Court held that specific legal rights can be granted to non-human animals such as primates without conflicting with overarching law. In BGer 2C_458/2024, para. 4.3.3, the Court clarified that, in the absence of a lex specialis, non-human animals cannot be considered legal subjects. This implies that it falls within the competence of the legislator to introduce such a lex specialis. From the reasoning of the Federal Supreme Court, it follows that the recognition of rights for nature is not per se incompatible with the Swiss legal system.