One with nature by law
there was limited cellphone service. He professed his love for the woman and told her he would marry her on condition she helped him with the money to return to Earth. Trustingly, she sent him the equivalent of R547000 in instalments during August and last month. The woman grew suspicious when the man’s demands began to increase and she decided to report him to the police, who are investigating the romance scam.
Extending legal rights and protections to nonhuman entities is an imperative part of tackling climate change, according to a report titled
Law in the Emerging Bio Age. Countries like Ecuador, which recognise the rights of “Mother Earth” to exist and “maintain and regenerate its cycles, structure, functions and evolutionary processes” have led the way for such a framework. Dr Trish O’flynn, one of the co-authors of the report, highlights the tendency humans have to place themselves outside nature and implies that because humans are one with nature, the legal framework should go beyond the human species. “An example of a right might be evolutionary development, where a species and individual … is allowed to reach its full cognitive, emotional, social potential,” she says. Researchers argue the importance of covering everything from pets and lab-grown tissue to robots, stating that legal frameworks are integral to governing human interactions with the environment and biotechnology. On similar lines, there is a campaign, emerging from the US, for the International Criminal Court to recognise ecocide as a prosecutable offence.
Girls oppose school closures
Cameroonian girls are calling for an end to school shutdowns caused by the separatist crisis in western regions and Boko Haram terrorism on the borders of Nigeria and Chad. Through demonstrations planned for Tuesday, International Day of the Girl, hundreds of girls protested in several cities. Adama Issatou, a 16-year-old who was abducted from school in 2018 and impregnated by a Boko Haram fighter who abandoned her in a camp for three years, voiced her plea for an education through a message that was played by several broadcasters in the country on Tuesday. Protestors are requesting better security at schools so that children can return. “You get into a village and you see a girl of 12 years already having a child. These are children who are supposed to be in school. Those who triggered these issues recruited children, pupils as child soldiers. We should rescue them, we should move around and preach so that people should see the essence of education. Reconstruct the schools; allow the children to go to school,” said one activist.