The idea of an Embassy of the Baltic Sea was introduced in a special issue of the Nordic Environmental Law Journal (2024) focusing on the rights of nature. The special issue is the result of a symposium titled “National Interest, Representation, and the State: Implications for the Recognition of Rights of Nature” held at Uppsala University on 5 June 2023. The symposium was organized by members of the Formas-funded research project “Realizing Rights of Nature: Sustaining Development and Democracy” and brought together scholars in the fields of law, political science, international relations, history, and theology. Its purpose was to consider the implications of a novel approach to nature protection that has drawn increased interest in recent years: the recognition of nature as a rights-bearing legal entity.

Pella Thiel participated in the symposium and contributed with an article titled "Moral imagination for the rights of Nature: An Embassy of the Baltic Sea".


ABSTRACT:

International environmental law is miserably failing to protect ecosystems, due to deeply held cultural perceptions of nature as just a resource for humans. In the Baltic Sea this results in severe degradation including collapsing fish stocks. The failure of decision-making bodies at EU-level to follow their own policies is used as an example of how law is not respected when an anthropocentric culture reaches ecological limits. This article argues for rights of nature (RoN) as not just a strategy to legally protect ecosystems, but a powerful lever for a necessary cultural transformation as well as a governance tool for a society in harmony with nature. In a transnational context lacking legal recognition of RoN, establishing an Embassy of the Baltic Sea would enhance representation of more-than-human beings and support acknowledgement of RoN. It would be a space inviting a diversity of voices and knowledge forms, practicing speaking for and with the sea. Such cultural “laboratories of care” are important for emerging Earth jurisprudence. The Embassy of the Baltic Sea would also potentially support a shift in human identity towards belonging, responsibility and care for the living whole we are a part of.