Julio Torres, Intern
At the very end of Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax, after the forest has been destroyed and the pond has been drained, a boy is given a seed that will potentially bring renewal to the now tree-less land.
The story was published in 1971. A year latter, Christopher D. Stone, J. Thomas McCarthy
Trustee Chair in Law at the University of Southern California, published Should Trees Have Standing?, a work that very much speaks for the trees.
His book became a cornerstone of the environmental debate, but since this is an ongoing struggle without quick remedies, this real life Lorax has updated his book, now with a 21st urgency and mindset. Stone makes a case for the voiceless trees, oceans, wildlife and environment, arguing they should have legal rights.
The following excerpt discusses the case of an 80s oceanic catastrophe in Germany, and how in the long run, advocating for the environment paid off. In his chapter conclusion, he argues that an institution like the Global Commons Trust Fund is best fitted to get results for cases like these.
As Dr. Seuss wrote, “UNLESS someone like you cares an awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It’s not.” Words to keep in mind as you read the excerpt below.
A case in Germany invoked the guardianship concept in a case with global implications. In 1988, approximately 15,000 dead seals mysteriously washed up on the beaches of the North and Baltic Seas. Widespread alarms were sounded, amid considerable concern that the massive deaths were portent of an impending ecological disaster. The most flagrant insult to the North Sea’s chemistry was widely considered to be titanium and other heavy metals that were being produced by incineration and dumping on the high seas by permit of the Western German government.
Conceivably, any of the states bordering the sea might have tried to challenge Germany’s action. But recall that, so long as the harm was being done on, or affecting life only in, the high seas, the authority of any nation to sue was (and is) doubtful. For Poland, say, to trace through a legally compensable injury would have been nearly hopeless. From the point of view of national fishing interests, the reduction—even elimination—of the seals might even have been regarded as an economic benefit. (The harbor seals involved, unlike fur seals, are themselves commercially valueless but compete with fishermen for commercial fish stocks.) Moreover, all the sea-bordering nations were contributing to the pollution, and thus, had any of them objected their case might have been met by Germany with an “unclean hands” defense: “you can’t complain, because you’re as guilty as we are.”
Who, then, was to speak for the seals—and, in so doing, represent all the elements of the ecological web whose hazarded fortunes were intertwined? In comparable situations in the United States, courts have shown willingness to interpret the Administrative Procedure Act and other laws as giving a public interest group standing to challenge the government’s actions. German law, however, is much more stringent about allowing “citizen’s suits.”
The solution was for a group of German environmental lawyers (with the encouragement and advice of the author) to institute an action in which the North Sea seals were named the lawsuit’s principal plaintiffs, with the lawye