**Book Launch**

One Year After the BP Oil Spill, Renowned Authors, Scholars and Activist Gather to
Consider The Question: What if Mother Earth Had Rights?

Maude Barlow, Vandana Shiva, Cormac Cullinan and Bolivian UN Ambassador Pablo Solon at CUNY Graduate Center
New Legal Paradigm for Protecting the Environment and Assessing Damages Emerging

NEW YORK – This Thursday prominent scholars and experts on the environment and human rights from around the world will gather at the City University of New York Graduate Center to launch two new books, The Rights of Nature: The Case for a Universal Declaration of the Rights of Mother Earth and Wild Law: A Manifesto for Earth and Justice, Second Edition. 

The event comes a day after the UN General Assembly will discuss implementing new international standards that afford rights and legal standing not just to individuals and businesses adversely affected by the exploitation and damage to natural resources, but to nature and ecosystems themselves.  

“The case for acknowledging the Rights of Nature cannot be understated,” says Maude Barlow, former Senior Advisor on Water to the President of the UN General Assembly, chairperson of the Council of Canadians and lead contributor to The Rights of Nature. “Every now and then in history, the human race takes a collective step forward in its evolution. Such a time is upon us now as we begin to understand the urgent need to protect the Earth and its ecosystems from which all life comes. The Universal Declaration of the Rights of Mother Earth is a crucial link in this process and will one day stand as the companion to the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights as one of the guiding covenants of our time.”

**The event is free and open to the public**
Speakers available for interviews

Contact:

Dylan Penner, media officer, Council of Canadians, 613-795-8685

Shonna Carter, Riptide Communications, 212-260-5000