When a river can sue: New Zealand’s Legal Revolution and What Serbia Can Learn
Imagine this courtroom scene: the prosecutor walks in, opens a file and says, “Your Honour, I represent the Sava River. It is suing a chemical plant for pollution.” It sounds like legal science fiction, right? When a river can sue – In New Zealand, this is no longer a fantasy, but a realistic scenario since 2017.
A river with a lawyer
In March 2017, New Zealand’s parliament made a revolutionary decision: the Whanganui River became a legal person with the same rights, duties and responsibilities as a human being. This was not the product of a momentary burst of eco enthusiasm, but the result of 140 years of negotiations led by the Indigenous Māori people, who live by the principle “Ko au te awa, ko te awa ko au” – I am the river and the river is me. After the river, the Te Urewera forest lost its national park status in 2014 and gained something no forest had ever had before: ownership of itself. In 2025, Mount Taranaki also became a legal person with its own identity, Te Kāhui Tupua.
What does this actually mean? It means the Whanganui River has two guardians – one from the Māori community and one from the government – who can bring legal actions against anyone who harms it. The Te Urewera Forest is no longer state property; it owns itself, a legal twist that erases the traditional line between object and subject in law.
Legal systems: New Zealand vs. Serbia
If we compare this model with Serbia’s legal system, the differences are striking. In Serbia, nature is defined as a “good of general interest” – it sounds nice, but it has no legal personhood. Rivers, forests and mountains are treated as resources owned by the state or private entities. The Law on Waters clearly states that waters are public property of the Republic of Serbia. The Law on Forests treats forests as goods to be planned, used and cultivated. Protection is present, but mostly reactive – you sue a polluter after the damage is done.
In New Zealand, the approach is proactive. Nature does not wait to be destroyed in order to gain protection – it has a right to restoration and regeneration before someone starts exploiting it. A river is not the property of the state that a minister can allocate to investors. It is a legal person that speaks with its own legal voice.
And while in Serbia citizens and NGOs can file lawsuits in the name of their right to a healthy environment, in New Zealand nature files lawsuits in its own name. This is not a semantic difference; it is a legal revolution. When a person sues because a factory pollutes the air, they defend themselves. When a river sues, it defends the entire ecosystem – fish, birds and future generations.
Ownership: Who owns nature?
In the Serbian model, ownership is the key concept. The Republic of Serbia owns waters, national parks and state forests. Private owners hold private forests. Everything is in someone’s hands. In New Zealand, the Te Urewera forest owns itself – no one owns it. This radical shift challenges the idea that nature must be someone’s property to be protected. In fact, ownership often means a right to exploit.
Management is also different. In Serbia, state institutions dominate – the Ministry of Environmental Protection, the Forest Administration, public enterprises. Local communities have a limited role. In New Zealand, joint bodies bring together Māori representatives and government officials, combining traditional knowledge with modern science. Māori communities are not side actors but active stewards who make decisions based on cultural, spiritual and ecological understanding of nature.
What can Serbia learn?
Serbia faces serious environmental crises: polluted rivers such as the Danube, Sava and Morava, illegal logging, degradation of mountains, small hydropower plants that destroy river ecosystems. The current legal model reveals a gap between law and reality – regulations exist, but enforcement is weak, penalties are rare and political decisions often override environmental principles.
Giving legal personhood to nature could offer new solutions. Imagine the Drina River with two guardians – one from local communities living along its banks and one from state institutions – who can sue any factory that discharges untreated wastewater. Or imagine the Tara forest owning itself and having a governing body that makes decisions primarily based on conservation, not short‑term political or economic interests.
This model requires deep legal reforms. The Constitution would need to recognise nature as a subject, not only a “good of general interest.” Special laws would have to define who the guardians are, how they are selected and what powers they have. Funding would need to come from dedicated environmental budgets, not from logging – the current paradox where protected areas often rely financially on activities that degrade them.
Cultural change: From ownership to responsibility
Perhaps the greatest challenge is cultural. Traditional legal systems rest on ownership as the foundation of power. Whoever owns, decides. The New Zealand model replaces ownership with responsibility – nature is not our asset to use as we please, but a living system with its own rights that we are obliged to protect.
For Serbia, this change would mean questioning economic models built on intensive exploitation of natural resources. It would mean strengthening the role of local communities that have the deepest relationship with their rivers, forests and mountains. It would mean educating lawyers, judges and citizens about a concept that sounds radical, but is profoundly logical: if nature gives life, doesn’t it deserve the right to live?
Conclusion: A future waiting to happen
New Zealand’s model is not perfect, but it offers a powerful vision: a legal system that does not treat nature as a passive object of protection, but as an active subject with rights. For Serbia, confronted with climate change, pollution and biodiversity loss, this could be a path to genuine environmental protection. When a river can sue, it no longer relies only on well‑intentioned people – it has the law on its side. And that is not legal fantasy. That is a future waiting to happen.
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