Legal Rights for Rivers: Competition, Collaboration and Water Governance

"Rivers, wetlands and floodplains are under dire threat across the globe. And with their decline and loss so go the, often, unique plant and animal species that depend on them. In Australia's largest river basin, the Murray-Darling, those threats are being tackled through a new model of environmental watering that deals with the Basin as a single connected system irrespective of jurisdictional boundaries. Erin O'Donnell's insightful and comprehensive examination of the implications of creating legal rights for rivers is a fundamental contribution to answering the question of 'what next'? For those of us committed to seeing healthy rivers surviving in highly modified landscapes where water is fought over, her analysis and arguments serve as a powerful stepping stone to the development of a truly robust and collaborative management approach that is underpinned by the legal rights of rivers." - David Papps, Commonwealth Environmental Water Holder from 2012-2018, Australia "O'Donnell's book is a fantastic piece of scholarship that helps frame the evolving legal context that humans have developed for the natural environment. In particular, its treatment of the implications emerging from according legal personality to water bodies offers invaluable insight into how we value freshwater and other natural resources, and how we seek to protect them for ourselves, our children, and the environment. This work is a vital contribution to the literature on water law and the law of nature, and its analysis will likely serve as a foundation for the further development of these legal areas." - Gabriel Eckstein, Professor of Law, Texas A&M University, USA "Erin O’Donnell’s thought-provoking book explores a new frontier in environmental law, asking whether recognizing the legal rights of rivers will strengthen, or paradoxically weaken, protection for these vital veins of water and life." - David R. Boyd, UN Special Rapporteur on human rights and the environment and Associate Professor of Law, Policy, and Sustainability, University of British Columbia, Canada "Rivers, wetlands and floodplains are under dire threat across the globe. And with their decline and loss so go the, often, unique plant and animal species that depend on them. In Australia's largest river basin, the Murray-Darling, those threats are being tackled through a new model of environmental watering that deals with the Basin as a single connected system irrespective of jurisdictional boundaries. Erin O'Donnell's insightful and comprehensive examination of the implications of creating legal rights for rivers is a fundamental contribution to answering the question of 'what next'? For those of us committed to seeing healthy rivers surviving in highly modified landscapes where water is fought over, her analysis and arguments serve as a powerful stepping stone to the development of a truly robust and collaborative management approach that is underpinned by the legal rights of rivers." - David Papps, Commonwealth Environmental Water Holder from 2012-2018, Australia "O'Donnell's book is a fantastic piece of scholarship that helps frame the evolving legal context that humans have developed for the natural environment. In particular, its treatment of the implications emerging from according legal personality to water bodies offers invaluable insight into how we value freshwater and other natural resources, and how we seek to protect them for ourselves, our children, and the environment. This work is a vital contribution to the literature on water law and the law of nature, and its analysis will likely serve as a foundation for the further development of these legal areas." - Gabriel Eckstein, Professor of Law, Texas A&M University, USA "Erin O’Donnell’s thought-provoking book explores a new frontier in environmental law, asking whether recognizing the legal rights of rivers will strengthen, or paradoxically weaken, protection for these vital veins of water and life." - David R. Boyd, UN Special Rapporteur on human rights and the environment and Associate Professor of Law, Policy, and Sustainability, University of British Columbia, Canada