Elizabeth Macpherson
Biographic Data
| ID | 190826 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Elizabeth Macpherson |
| GIVEN NAMES | Elizabeth |
| FAMILY NAME | Macpherson |
| SIGNATURE | MACPHERSON E |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Canterbury |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-1021-9930 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 20 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 56 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 20 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2017 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
From Protecting to Respecting Marine Relations in Aotearoa, New Zealand
Coastal marine areas are complex ecological systems that serve as receptacles of water from land, rivers, streams and the ocean. They are culturally embedded terrains, involving complex relational systems between the natural and human communities. In Aotearoa, New Zealand, Crown laws and policies have failed to effectively manage the multitude of pressures facing coastal marine environments. However, these laws and policies evolved within settler…
River Rights and the Territorial Autonomy of Indigenous and Ethnic Communities in Ecuador and Colombia
Across multiple jurisdictions, Indigenous and ethnic communities have sought recognition and protection of the legal rights of rivers as part of broader activist agendas seeking greater legal and political control over their lands and resources. Yet the legal scholarship tracing these cases of ‘river rights’ has often ignored the role of activism in driving and shaping river rights frameworks, as well as the broader implications of these framewor…
(Sustainable) Development, Environment, and the Relational ‘Third Space’
Policymakers often cite a need to balance, or trade off, the protection and restoration of the natural environment on the one hand, and the extractive use of the environment for economic reasons on the other. This tension is inherent in the goal of ‘sustainable development’, which, despite providing a conceptual basis for Western environmental and conservation law, has also been criticized for legitimizing socio-ecologically destructive practices…
Untapping the potential of Indigenous water jurisdiction
Indigenous peoples have maintained sustainable, longstanding relationships with water and have valuable knowledge to contribute to water management. Those concerned about the recognition of Indigenous water rights and relationships often point to the case of Aotearoa New Zealand, and specifically the Treaty of Waitangi settlement legislation recognising the Whanganui River as a ‘legal person’, as a replicable model for improved water governance a…
Cuando la ley se queda corta
Laws that recognise rivers and their ecosystems as legal persons or subjects with their own rights, duties and obligations have been associated with theories of environmental constitutionalism. However, the extent to, and manner in which, constitutional law (with its elevated status) has been instrumental in the conferral of these ‘riverine rights’ is still not well-understood. In this article, we consider the constitutional relevance of the reco…
Indigenous rights and ontological plurality in the institutional arrangements for the Waikato and Waipā Rivers in Aotearoa
This paper analyses the institutional arrangements for the Waikato \nand Waipā Rivers in Aotearoa New Zealand to consider how \neffectively they promote Indigenous rights and the exercise of \nMāori law and relationships with place. We ask how these \narrangements shape power relations and dynamics among \ndifferent (human and non-human) actors and whether they foster \nrelationality and create the enabling conditions that generate \nalternatives…
Beyond legal personhood for the Whanganui River
There is now a large body of scholarly literature on the legal and governance arrangements for the Whanganui River in Aotearoa New Zealand, given the rights of a legal person under Te Awa Tupua (Whanganui River Claims Settlement) Act 2017. Most of this literature focuses on the innovation of legal personhood and rights of nature rather than situating the Act in its local context or examining its implementation in practice. This article analyzes t…
Rights of nature and rivers in Ecuador’s Constitutional Court
peer reviewed
Evolving rights to (and of) water in Chile
Theoretical debates about water law have long been characterised by a tension between notions of water as a human right and as a commodity, alongside developing attention to resistance by Indigenous groups to the colonisation of their waters.This tension is apparent in Chile, where different conceptions of rights continue to be traded off against each otherincluding the rights to property and to water.In recent years, water law debates in Chile h…
Reflecting on the Future of Human–Water Relationships
An abstract is not available for this content. As you have access to this content, full HTML content is provided on this page. A PDF of this content is also available in through the ‘Save PDF’ action button
Experiments with the Extension of Legal Personality to Ecosystems and Beyond-Human Organisms
In recent years, a number of jurisdictions have recognized diverse ecosystems and other-than-human organisms as legal persons. From national constitutions and legislation to subnational judicial decisions and ordinances, these legal experiments have extended legal personality to riverine and terrestrial ecological communities, including vast geographical areas and the beyond-human beings that inhabit them. A growing body of literature engages wit…
Safeguarding Indigenous biocultural resources in a global context
Indigenous people are considering how to safeguard their natural resources, culture and knowledge against illegal, inappropriate or unauthorised use. Such protection is needed to maintain the integrity of Indigenous relationship to and control over such resources, while allowing for potential benefits from such resources to support tribal social and economic development. Using the case study of taramea ( Aciphylla aurea), a sub-alpine speargrass,…
‘Hooks’ and ‘Anchors’ for relational ecosystem-based marine management
There remains uncertainty about the legal and policy tools, processes and institutions needed to support ecosystem-based marine management (EBM). This article relies on an interdisciplinary study of ecosystem-based language and approaches in the laws and policies of New Zealand, Australia and Chile, which uncovered important lessons for implementing EBM around the need to accept regulatory fragmentation, provide effective resourcing, respect and …
Where ordinary laws fall short
Laws that recognise rivers and their ecosystems as legal persons or subjects with their own rights, duties and obligations have been associated with theories of environmental constitutionalism. However, the extent to, and manner in which, constitutional law (with its elevated status) has been instrumental in the conferral of these ‘riverine rights’ is still not well-understood. In this article, we consider the constitutional relevance of the reco…
Yoongoorrookoo
Since the momentous release of the Montecristi Constitution of Ecuador in 2008, which recognised Nature, or Pacha Mama, as a subject of rights, the rights of Nature movement across the world has gained exponential momentum, with numerous jurisdictions worldwide now recognising some form of legal subjectivity vested upon Nature. In particular, since 2017, river personhood has dominated news headlines around the world as one of the most recognisabl…
The pluralism of river rights in Aotearoa, New Zealand and Colombia
In this article we interrogate the recognition of rivers as legal persons in Aotearoa New Zealand (Whanganui River) and Colombia (Ri'o Atrato). Although the legal, political, historical and cultural context for recognition is different in each country, an analysis of the cases presents some interesting conceptual correlations, which help us to understand this emerging (and sometimes controversial) transnational idea that a river can be a person. …
Indigenous Water Rights in Comparative Law
At the end of the 2015 Academy Award-winning filmThe Big Short, which explores the origins of the 2008 Global Financial Crisis, a caption notes that the Wall Street investor protagonist of the film who predicted the collapse of the United States (US) housing market would now be 'focused on one commodity: water'. Water is sometimes described in popular culture as 'the new oil' or 'more valuable than gold'. It is predicted to be the subject of incr…
Towards a Holistic Environmental Flow Regime in Chile
A widespread response to the pressures placed on the ecological condition of rivers is the design and implementation of environmental flow regimes in domestic regulatory frameworks for water. Environmental interests in water are not confined to hydrological functioning but include relationships between water resources and human cultural and economic livelihoods, including those of Indigenous communities. Since the mid-1980s there has been some pr…
Constitutional Law, Ecosystems, and Indigenous Peoples in Colombia
The recognition of rivers and related ecosystems as legal persons or subjects is an emerging mechanism in transnational practice available to governments in seeking more effective and collaborative natural resource management, sometimes at the insistence of indigenous peoples. This approach is developing particularly quickly in Colombia, where legal rights for rivers and ecosystems are grasping onto, and evolving out of, constitutional human righ…
Beyond Recognition
Australian water law frameworks, which authorise water use, have historically excluded indigenous people. Indigenous land now exceeds 30 per cent of the total land in Australia. Yet indigenous water use rights are estimated at less than 0.01 per cent of total Australian water allocations. In the limited situations where water law frameworks have engaged with indigenous interests, they typically conceive of such interests as falling outside of the…
Constitutional Law, Ecosystems, and Indigenous Peoples in Colombia
The recognition of rivers and related ecosystems as legal persons or subjects is an emerging mechanism in transnational practice available to governments in seeking more effective and collaborative natural resource management, sometimes at the insistence of indigenous peoples. This approach is developing particularly quickly in Colombia, where legal rights for rivers and ecosystems are grasping onto, and evolving out of, constitutional human righ…
The pluralism of river rights in Aotearoa, New Zealand and Colombia
In this article we interrogate the recognition of rivers as legal persons in Aotearoa New Zealand (Whanganui River) and Colombia (Ri'o Atrato). Although the legal, political, historical and cultural context for recognition is different in each country, an analysis of the cases presents some interesting conceptual correlations, which help us to understand this emerging (and sometimes controversial) transnational idea that a river can be a person. …
Rights of nature and rivers in Ecuador’s Constitutional Court
peer reviewed
Beyond legal personhood for the Whanganui River
There is now a large body of scholarly literature on the legal and governance arrangements for the Whanganui River in Aotearoa New Zealand, given the rights of a legal person under Te Awa Tupua (Whanganui River Claims Settlement) Act 2017. Most of this literature focuses on the innovation of legal personhood and rights of nature rather than situating the Act in its local context or examining its implementation in practice. This article analyzes t…
Towards a Holistic Environmental Flow Regime in Chile
A widespread response to the pressures placed on the ecological condition of rivers is the design and implementation of environmental flow regimes in domestic regulatory frameworks for water. Environmental interests in water are not confined to hydrological functioning but include relationships between water resources and human cultural and economic livelihoods, including those of Indigenous communities. Since the mid-1980s there has been some pr…
Beyond Recognition
Australian water law frameworks, which authorise water use, have historically excluded indigenous people. Indigenous land now exceeds 30 per cent of the total land in Australia. Yet indigenous water use rights are estimated at less than 0.01 per cent of total Australian water allocations. In the limited situations where water law frameworks have engaged with indigenous interests, they typically conceive of such interests as falling outside of the…
Experiments with the Extension of Legal Personality to Ecosystems and Beyond-Human Organisms
In recent years, a number of jurisdictions have recognized diverse ecosystems and other-than-human organisms as legal persons. From national constitutions and legislation to subnational judicial decisions and ordinances, these legal experiments have extended legal personality to riverine and terrestrial ecological communities, including vast geographical areas and the beyond-human beings that inhabit them. A growing body of literature engages wit…
Indigenous rights and ontological plurality in the institutional arrangements for the Waikato and Waipā Rivers in Aotearoa
This paper analyses the institutional arrangements for the Waikato \nand Waipā Rivers in Aotearoa New Zealand to consider how \neffectively they promote Indigenous rights and the exercise of \nMāori law and relationships with place. We ask how these \narrangements shape power relations and dynamics among \ndifferent (human and non-human) actors and whether they foster \nrelationality and create the enabling conditions that generate \nalternatives…
Safeguarding Indigenous biocultural resources in a global context
Indigenous people are considering how to safeguard their natural resources, culture and knowledge against illegal, inappropriate or unauthorised use. Such protection is needed to maintain the integrity of Indigenous relationship to and control over such resources, while allowing for potential benefits from such resources to support tribal social and economic development. Using the case study of taramea ( Aciphylla aurea), a sub-alpine speargrass,…
Indigenous Water Rights in Comparative Law
At the end of the 2015 Academy Award-winning filmThe Big Short, which explores the origins of the 2008 Global Financial Crisis, a caption notes that the Wall Street investor protagonist of the film who predicted the collapse of the United States (US) housing market would now be 'focused on one commodity: water'. Water is sometimes described in popular culture as 'the new oil' or 'more valuable than gold'. It is predicted to be the subject of incr…
Beyond Recognition
Australian water law frameworks, which authorise water use, have historically excluded indigenous people. Indigenous land now exceeds 30 per cent of the total land in Australia. Yet indigenous water use rights are estimated at less than 0.01 per cent of total Australian water allocations. In the limited situations where water law frameworks have engaged with indigenous interests, they typically conceive of such interests as falling outside of the…
The pluralism of river rights in Aotearoa, New Zealand and Colombia
In this article we interrogate the recognition of rivers as legal persons in Aotearoa New Zealand (Whanganui River) and Colombia (Ri'o Atrato). Although the legal, political, historical and cultural context for recognition is different in each country, an analysis of the cases presents some interesting conceptual correlations, which help us to understand this emerging (and sometimes controversial) transnational idea that a river can be a person. …
Indigenous Water Rights in Comparative Law
At the end of the 2015 Academy Award-winning filmThe Big Short, which explores the origins of the 2008 Global Financial Crisis, a caption notes that the Wall Street investor protagonist of the film who predicted the collapse of the United States (US) housing market would now be 'focused on one commodity: water'. Water is sometimes described in popular culture as 'the new oil' or 'more valuable than gold'. It is predicted to be the subject of incr…
Towards a Holistic Environmental Flow Regime in Chile
A widespread response to the pressures placed on the ecological condition of rivers is the design and implementation of environmental flow regimes in domestic regulatory frameworks for water. Environmental interests in water are not confined to hydrological functioning but include relationships between water resources and human cultural and economic livelihoods, including those of Indigenous communities. Since the mid-1980s there has been some pr…
Constitutional Law, Ecosystems, and Indigenous Peoples in Colombia
The recognition of rivers and related ecosystems as legal persons or subjects is an emerging mechanism in transnational practice available to governments in seeking more effective and collaborative natural resource management, sometimes at the insistence of indigenous peoples. This approach is developing particularly quickly in Colombia, where legal rights for rivers and ecosystems are grasping onto, and evolving out of, constitutional human righ…
‘Hooks’ and ‘Anchors’ for relational ecosystem-based marine management
There remains uncertainty about the legal and policy tools, processes and institutions needed to support ecosystem-based marine management (EBM). This article relies on an interdisciplinary study of ecosystem-based language and approaches in the laws and policies of New Zealand, Australia and Chile, which uncovered important lessons for implementing EBM around the need to accept regulatory fragmentation, provide effective resourcing, respect and …
Where ordinary laws fall short
Laws that recognise rivers and their ecosystems as legal persons or subjects with their own rights, duties and obligations have been associated with theories of environmental constitutionalism. However, the extent to, and manner in which, constitutional law (with its elevated status) has been instrumental in the conferral of these ‘riverine rights’ is still not well-understood. In this article, we consider the constitutional relevance of the reco…
Yoongoorrookoo
Since the momentous release of the Montecristi Constitution of Ecuador in 2008, which recognised Nature, or Pacha Mama, as a subject of rights, the rights of Nature movement across the world has gained exponential momentum, with numerous jurisdictions worldwide now recognising some form of legal subjectivity vested upon Nature. In particular, since 2017, river personhood has dominated news headlines around the world as one of the most recognisabl…
Evolving rights to (and of) water in Chile
Theoretical debates about water law have long been characterised by a tension between notions of water as a human right and as a commodity, alongside developing attention to resistance by Indigenous groups to the colonisation of their waters.This tension is apparent in Chile, where different conceptions of rights continue to be traded off against each otherincluding the rights to property and to water.In recent years, water law debates in Chile h…
Reflecting on the Future of Human–Water Relationships
An abstract is not available for this content. As you have access to this content, full HTML content is provided on this page. A PDF of this content is also available in through the ‘Save PDF’ action button
Experiments with the Extension of Legal Personality to Ecosystems and Beyond-Human Organisms
In recent years, a number of jurisdictions have recognized diverse ecosystems and other-than-human organisms as legal persons. From national constitutions and legislation to subnational judicial decisions and ordinances, these legal experiments have extended legal personality to riverine and terrestrial ecological communities, including vast geographical areas and the beyond-human beings that inhabit them. A growing body of literature engages wit…
Safeguarding Indigenous biocultural resources in a global context
Indigenous people are considering how to safeguard their natural resources, culture and knowledge against illegal, inappropriate or unauthorised use. Such protection is needed to maintain the integrity of Indigenous relationship to and control over such resources, while allowing for potential benefits from such resources to support tribal social and economic development. Using the case study of taramea ( Aciphylla aurea), a sub-alpine speargrass,…
Cuando la ley se queda corta
Laws that recognise rivers and their ecosystems as legal persons or subjects with their own rights, duties and obligations have been associated with theories of environmental constitutionalism. However, the extent to, and manner in which, constitutional law (with its elevated status) has been instrumental in the conferral of these ‘riverine rights’ is still not well-understood. In this article, we consider the constitutional relevance of the reco…
Indigenous rights and ontological plurality in the institutional arrangements for the Waikato and Waipā Rivers in Aotearoa
This paper analyses the institutional arrangements for the Waikato \nand Waipā Rivers in Aotearoa New Zealand to consider how \neffectively they promote Indigenous rights and the exercise of \nMāori law and relationships with place. We ask how these \narrangements shape power relations and dynamics among \ndifferent (human and non-human) actors and whether they foster \nrelationality and create the enabling conditions that generate \nalternatives…
Beyond legal personhood for the Whanganui River
There is now a large body of scholarly literature on the legal and governance arrangements for the Whanganui River in Aotearoa New Zealand, given the rights of a legal person under Te Awa Tupua (Whanganui River Claims Settlement) Act 2017. Most of this literature focuses on the innovation of legal personhood and rights of nature rather than situating the Act in its local context or examining its implementation in practice. This article analyzes t…
Rights of nature and rivers in Ecuador’s Constitutional Court
peer reviewed
Untapping the potential of Indigenous water jurisdiction
Indigenous peoples have maintained sustainable, longstanding relationships with water and have valuable knowledge to contribute to water management. Those concerned about the recognition of Indigenous water rights and relationships often point to the case of Aotearoa New Zealand, and specifically the Treaty of Waitangi settlement legislation recognising the Whanganui River as a ‘legal person’, as a replicable model for improved water governance a…
From Protecting to Respecting Marine Relations in Aotearoa, New Zealand
Coastal marine areas are complex ecological systems that serve as receptacles of water from land, rivers, streams and the ocean. They are culturally embedded terrains, involving complex relational systems between the natural and human communities. In Aotearoa, New Zealand, Crown laws and policies have failed to effectively manage the multitude of pressures facing coastal marine environments. However, these laws and policies evolved within settler…
River Rights and the Territorial Autonomy of Indigenous and Ethnic Communities in Ecuador and Colombia
Across multiple jurisdictions, Indigenous and ethnic communities have sought recognition and protection of the legal rights of rivers as part of broader activist agendas seeking greater legal and political control over their lands and resources. Yet the legal scholarship tracing these cases of ‘river rights’ has often ignored the role of activism in driving and shaping river rights frameworks, as well as the broader implications of these framewor…
(Sustainable) Development, Environment, and the Relational ‘Third Space’
Policymakers often cite a need to balance, or trade off, the protection and restoration of the natural environment on the one hand, and the extractive use of the environment for economic reasons on the other. This tension is inherent in the goal of ‘sustainable development’, which, despite providing a conceptual basis for Western environmental and conservation law, has also been criticized for legitimizing socio-ecologically destructive practices…
Environmental law and policy (17 works) · Indigenous (13 works) · Political science (13 works) · Law (12 works) · Indigenous rights (10 works) · Human rights (9 works) · Water Governance and Infrastructure (9 works) · Ecology (8 works) · Sociology (8 works) · Law (6 works)