Should Trees Have Standing?

Originally published in 1972, "Should Trees Have Standing? Toward Legal Rights for Natural Objects" immediately became a rallying point of the then nascent U.S. environmenal movement and has since become a classic worldwide. In Trees, Professor Stone argues that although each successive movement to confer rights on some theretofore rightless "entity" has first appeared "odd or frightening or laughable", the progress of the law, and of morals, has been to invite more and more members into the ever-widening community. He then proceeds to argue for a further widening by proposing that special guardians be empowered to speak for the "voiceless" elements in Nature: in effect, to give "legal standing" to endangered species and threatened forests. For this twenty-fifth anniversary commemorative reissue, Professor Stone has added a collection of his most influential writings, and has also written a new Introduction and Epilogue, which narrates the reception of the Trees thesis in countries throughout the world, and astutely appraises the present state of the environmental movement.