The Embassy of the North Sea in The Hague, founded in 2018, is fighting to get the legal rights of the North Sea recognized. The group’s director of communications, Christiane Bosman, states that the main purpose of the Embassy is to increase public support for the rights of nature in the North Sea and give the Dutch government ‘concrete proposals’ on how to do so, by 2030. From 1969 to 2017, the North Sea’s average surface temperature has risen by 1.3 degrees Celsius. Currently, Dutch civil law does not recognize or grant legal personhood to nature. Only humans possess the legal right to sue in environmental matters. Legal expert and UN advisor for the Rights of Nature, Laura Burgers, notes that the Embassy’s work is centered on recognizing the sea as a living being that can make decisions, and should be allowed to have a say it what is allowed and not allowed to happen to it, i.e. fishing practices or fossil fuel extraction. This case is one of hundreds all over the world, as many other places are fighting to have important ecological regions granted their rights.
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