Photo by Kirill Fokin

The Ocean Rights Movement has launched a new global hub at oceanrights.com, providing a centralised platform for advancing an ethical human-ocean relationship. The website, powered by Ocean Vision Legal with support from Gallifrey Foundation, offers resources for advocates working towards legal recognition of the ocean as a living entity with intrinsic value and inherent rights.

The hub includes toolkits and resources for advocates, a law and policy tracker monitoring Ocean Rights progress worldwide, and a Movement Declaration that organisations, governments, and individuals can sign.

Global progress

The platform tracks Ocean Rights initiatives in partnership with the Eco-Jurisprudence Monitor. More than 400 Rights of Nature initiatives, laws, policies, and judicial decisions exist in approximately 40 countries, with over 60 in 19 countries specific to the ocean or marine ecosystems and species.

Prime Minister of Cabo Verde, Ulisses Correia e Silva, stated at The Ocean Race Summit in September 2023: “I call upon all member countries to join us in recognizing the inherent rights of the ocean, collectively shaping a brighter future for generations to come.”

Dr Sylvia Earle, oceanographer and National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence, said: “We need to think about the rights of other creatures, of other systems, of the ocean, as if our life depended on it.”

Legal framework

Ocean Vision Legal presented a document to the UN General Assembly in September 2023 encouraging member states to begin dialogue on Ocean Rights. A foundational document titled ‘We are the Ocean and the Ocean is Us’ outlines principles underpinning the framework, based on feedback from over 150 stakeholders.

The initiative aligns with efforts to establish ecocide as the fifth crime under the International Criminal Court’s Rome Statute, with an independent expert panel defining it in 2021 as “the unlawful or wanton acts committed with the knowledge that there is substantial likelihood of severe and either widespread or long-term damage to the environment being caused by those acts.”

The platform will continue to evolve with additional resources for partners and the global community. Those interested can sign the Ocean Rights Declaration at oceanrights.com.