“Rights of nature in the European Union: a rights-based approach as an inevitable outcome of increased environmental protection in the Anthropocene?”

The EU has built one of the world’s strongest frameworks for protecting the environment and human health, yet it stops short of recognizing legal rights for nature. While directives like the EU Habitats Directive and the Water Framework Directive offer powerful protections, they do not explicitly treat ecosystems as rights-holders. This chapter explores how EU law might engage with emerging rights-of-nature models and suggests that some habitats may already hold implicit rights—like the right to exist and regenerate—which would be enforceable through legal action by environmental groups acting on their behalf.