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2011 IUCNAEL EJournal i (2011)

handle is hein.journals/icnael2011 and id is 1 raw text is: IUCN Academyof Environmental L awjorn A Word frorn the Editors: Putting the Earth to Rights? This issue of the IUCNAEL e-Journal invites readers to consider multiple dimensions of the developing application of rights-based claims, in a variety of guises, as they pertain to the environment. The profile and purview of international human rights law and more recently international environmental law are now well established. It is therefore of course not surprising to note the emergence of first human rights-based claims with an environmental dimension and now cross-cutting human rights and environmental claims during the past few decades. Perhaps the only real matter that should take us aback is how long they have taken to emerge. The debate is however moving on apace and discussion is now shifting the boundaries of the rights debate beyond human rights- holders towards the idea of rights for other species and indeed for nature itself, through ground breaking documents such as the Earth Charter and the Draft Universal Declaration of the Rights of Mother Earth. The articles published in this edition represent diverse spectrums of opinion on the nature, ambit and content of these new emerging rights and the intersection between them. James May and Erin Daly, in 'New Directions in Earth Rights, Environmental Rights and Human Rights: Six Facets of Constitutionally Embedded Environmental Rights Worldwide', examine both the existing and expanding application of human rights-based claims, notably in South Asia and Latin America, with their recognition of the instrumental importance of the environment for human flourishing. Innovative judicial approaches to claims founded on the environment have of course been emerging across the globe, but debate has arguably been in reinvigorated by case law originating in the aforementioned jurisdictions. May and Daly also highlight the emergence of an innovative jurisprudence, IUCN Academy of Environmental Law e-Journal Issue 2011 (1)