Elizabeth Dunne – Rights of Nature

Business-Organization: Dunne Law, LLLC

Elizabeth M. Dunne, Esq. graduated from Emory Law School in 2000. She has worked for non-profits, law firms, and federal judges, and for the past several years has managed her own visionary law practice. In 2011, a year-long sabbatical from the legal world and 3 weeks at the Panya Project’s Permaculture Design Course in Thailand, revealed a new purpose for Elizabeth’s legal knowledge as part of a holistic approach toward balancing our ecosystems. Passionate about re-designing the laws which govern our relationships with each other and the Earth, Elizabeth’s practice focuses on advocating for a legal system which recognizes the rights of local communities and of Nature herself.

Elizabeth is currently counsel to community groups, local governments, and ecosystems defending, enforcing, and enacting laws that advance the people’s civil, political, and environmental rights and the rights of ecosystems to exist, flourish, and naturally evolve. Her client Grant Township, PA’s fight against the fracking industry has been covered in Rolling Stone and YES! magazine. She recently assisted in drafting the People’s Recommendation 74 which recognizes that the Southern Resident Orcas have an inherent right to life, including to their naturally occurring food source – Chinook from the Snake River, and the Declaration of the Rights of the Southern Resident Orcas which proclaims the inherent rights of the Orca and the ecosystems upon which they depend. Her collaborators include the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (www.celdf.org), Dam Sense (www.dansense.org), Legal Rights of Salish Sea (www.legalrightsforthesalishsea.org), the Sustainable Economies Law Center (www.theselc.org), The Kohala Center (kohalacenter.org), and everyone who envisions a more harmonious future where Nature is revered.

Port Angeles, WA
United States

Workshop(s)

Workshop 1: Rights of Nature Panel