The duty to protect the intrinsic value of nature to tackle the climate crisis

Faced with the failure of current environmental law to tackle climate and ecological crises, new legal approaches must be proposed, shifting from an anthropocentric to an ecocentric paradigm, which considers the protection of the integrity of the Earth System as the precondition to maintain life on the planet. This implies recognizing the need to protect Nature for its intrinsic value. This essay aims to offer legal practitioners arguments to justify this paradigm shift. First, the cultural formant will be explored, in three different dimensions (chthonic, religious and scientific), all converging in the ecosystem approach. Second, the gradual affirmation of the ecosystem approach within the legal framework of the Convention of Biological Diversity (CBD) will be examined. Finally, an analysis of relevant case law on the recognition of Nature as a legal entity will be offered. In the conclusion, the vulnerability of the human species given anthropogenic impacts on the Earth System will be considered to show that recognizing the intrinsic value of Nature is the only way to guarantee our survival as a species.