Rights of nature, participation and governance in Europe: a sociolegal study of the Mar Menor as a subject of rights

The project is a sociolegal case study on the first acknowledgement of a natural area as a subject of rights in Europe: the salty lagoon of Mar Menor in Murcia, Spain, in 2022.

The Mar Menor case is a crucial reference for similar bottom-up processes across Europe seeking to recognise natural areas as legal entities entitled to rights.

However, the extent to which these rights reflect societal aspirations for nature protection, the mechanisms through which legal frameworks drive socio-ecological changes, and the translation of granted rights into concrete governance practices remain contested.

The project aims to answer these questions by proposing an empirical qualitative study that analyses the socio-ecological claims of civic actors in Murcia, the legal construction of the Mar Menor as a rights-bearing entity, and the realisation of these rights in the local governance sphere.

Drawing on legal governance theories, the study examines the juridification of socio-ecological claims and their translation into local governance practices.

Employing a bottom-up socio-legal methodology, it tracks changes in discourses and practices over time using legal sources, policy documents, and interviews with experts and civic actors.

The research sheds light on the implications of granting rights to non-human entities amidst European socio-ecological transitions and provides an academic foundation for studying similar future processes in the region.