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Non-Human Rights as a Field of Academic Enquiry

When: Thursday, April 17, 2025, 4:00 PM - 5:00 PM
Where: Online

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Do non-human entities, such as animals, artificial intelligences (AI), and nature, have fundamental rights? Can they even have fundamental rights? If they can, how would these rights relate to the fundamental rights of human beings? And what, if any, rights can and should non-humans have?

Explore the developing academic field of non-human rights where in an online seminar where these and many other questions will be addressed by three panelists leading cutting edge research on this topic. Prof César Rodríguez-Garavito has recently published an edited volume called 'More than Human Rights: An Ecology of Law, Thought and Narrative for Earthly Flourishing' (NYU Law 2024). Dr Alexis Alvarez-Nakagawa has also recently published a volume (with Prof Costas Douzinas) entitled: 'Non-Human Rights: Critical Perspectives' (Edward Elgar 2024). Finally, Dr John Adenitire is working on an edited collection (with Dr Raffael Fasel) on 'Fundamental Rights for Non-Humans: Foundations, Flaws, and Futures' (Hart 2026). The seminar will focus on how these three researches envision the development of non-human rights as field of academic enquiry.

Speakers

  • Professor César Rodríguez-Garavito, NYU Law
  • Dr Alexis Alvarez-Nakagawa, QMUL Law
  • Dr John Adenitire, QMUL Law

César Rodríguez-Garavito

César Rodríguez-Garavito is Professor of Clinical Law and Chair of the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice at NYU School of Law. He is the founding director of the Earth Rights Research & Action (TERRA) Clinic, the More-Than-Human Rights (MOTH) Program and the Climate Law Accelerator. Professor Rodríguez-Garavito is an Earth rights and human rights scholar and a field lawyer whose work focuses on climate change, international environmental law, Indigenous peoples' rights and more-than-human rights. He is the editor of More than Human Rights (NYU 2024).

Dr Alexis Alvarez-Nakagawa

Alexis Alvarez-Nakagawa is a Senior Lecturer in Law and Fellow at the Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences at Queen Mary University of London. Dr Alvarez-Nakagawa’s research interests range from the globalisation of Western legal forms and the colonial history of international law to emerging trends in human rights and environmental law, including transitional justice in South America and the growing recognition of legal personhood and rights for non-human beings. His work combines insights from philosophy, critical theory, anthropology, and jurisprudence to explore these issues from an interdisciplinary and critical perspective. He is the editor, with Prof Costas Douzinas, of Non-Human Rights: Critical Perspectives (Edward Elgar 2024).

Dr John Adenitire

Dr John Adenitire is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Law and a Fellow of the Institute of Humanities and Social Sciences. Prior to joining Queen Mary, he was a Lecturer in Law at the University of Birmingham. He is the author, with Dr Raffael Fasel, of Animals and the Constitution (OUP 2025) and editor, with Dr Raffael Fasel, of Fundamental Rights for Non-Humans' (Hart 2026).

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