Dr. Peter Doran:

The committee will be pleased to know that this is a live conversation about the rights of nature and the constitutionalisation of these rights in other European territories. For example, in Finland there has been a proposal for a constitutional initiative. We have heard a little bit about France at this meeting. In Germany there have been a number of initiatives at state level. The ideas have been debated in parliament in Italy and Portugal.

The intergovernmental process on biodiversity is slowly but surely incorporating the rights of Mother Earth and acknowledging that the rights of nature are being incorporated by member states. Our own diplomatic staff have played a key role in enabling one of the champion states, Bolivia, in introducing that language into international forums at the UN. I think it is correct to say that the multilateral system and the European system will hopefully be influenced by some of the deliberations that happen in Ireland. Influence on our own deliberations, even down to local authority level, are coming from some of the initiatives from other territories. We can see that this is what we might call a cosmo-local initiative. It is intensely local, but it is taking into account the planetary conversation, the new language and the new paradigms