ABSTRACT Since 2017, some of the most beloved and iconic rivers in the world have been recognised in law as legal persons and/or living entities, with a range of legal rights and protections. These profound legal changes can transform the relationship between people and rivers, and are the result of ongoing leadership from Indigenous peoples and environmental advocates. This paper uses a comparative analysis of the legal and/or living personhood of rivers and lakes in Aotearoa New Zealand, India, Bangladesh, Colombia to identify the legal status of specific rivers, and highlight the disturbing trend of recognising rivers as legal persons and/or living entities whilst also denying rivers the right to flow. Rather than empowering rivers in law to resist existential threats, the new legal status of rivers may thus make it even more difficult to manage rivers to prevent their degradation and loss. This paper highlights an ‘extinction problem’ for rivers that environmental law has exacerbated, by recognising new non-human living beings whilst simultaneously denying them some of the specific legal rights they need to remain in existence. The paper also shows how a pluralist analysis of the status of rivers can help to identify some potential ways to address this problem.

中文翻译：

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河流作为生物：法律上的权利，但没有水权？

摘要自 2017 年以来，世界上一些最受欢迎和标志性的河流在法律上被承认为法人和/或生物实体，享有一系列合法权利和保护。这些深刻的法律变化可以改变人与河流之间的关系，并且是土著人民和环境倡导者持续领导的结果。本文通过对新西兰、印度、孟加拉国、哥伦比亚的河流和湖泊的法律和/或生存人格进行比较分析，以确定特定河流的法律地位，并突出承认河流为法人和/或河流的令人不安的趋势。或生物，同时也剥夺了河流的流动权。与其授权河流在法律上抵抗生存威胁，因此，河流的新法律地位可能使管理河流以防止其退化和流失变得更加困难。本文强调了环境法加剧的河流“灭绝问题”，承认新的非人类生物，同时剥夺了它们维持生存所需的一些特定法律权利。该论文还展示了对河流状况的多元分析如何帮助确定解决这一问题的一些潜在方法。