Who has rights? What rights do they have? Can circumstances change regarding who does and doesn't have rights? And should entities other than humans have rights? These are some of the central questions posed by legislation passed in late December by the White Earth Band of Ojibwe in Minnesota to ensure the rights something unexpected: manoomin wild rice.
The statutes represent landmark legislation in the United States since they are the first “to recognize legal rights of a plant species,” said Mari Margil, head of the International Center for the Rights of Nature at the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF). The new statutes, drafted in consultation with CELDF, include provisions to allow manoomin to "exist, flourish, regenerate, and evolve." Consistent with this goal is the right to have pure water and a healthy climate system, the right to be free from patents, and the right to be free from contamination by genetically engineered organisms.
In summary, manoomin wild rice is deserving of legal standing in U.S. courts — legal personhood. This would allow people, or organizations, to bring lawsuits on behalf of wild rice arguing that the grain itself was being harmed through an action. There would be no need to demonstrate that a person, or another entity with legal personhood, like a corporation, was being harmed.