RoNAG Research on Rights of Nature in Ghana Produces First Published Study
Two-year socio-legal research supported by Gower Street, UK, examines how Ghana’s legal system can better recognize and protect the Rights of Nature.
Publication Highlights
Paper Title: “From Anthropocentrism to Earth-Jurisprudence: Evaluating the Rights of Nature within Ghana's Statutory and International Legal Frameworks”
Journal: Udayana Journal of Law and Culture, Volume 10, Issue 2, July 2026, pages 175–197.
Authors: Dr. Dickson Adom (Director and Managing Campaigner, RoNAG), Richard Obeng Mensah (Environmental Law Expert), and Harrison Kwabena Owusu (Research Officer, RoNAG).
The Rights of Nature Ghana Movement (RoNAG) has announced the publication of the first research paper emerging from its two-year socio-legal research programme examining the place of the Rights of Nature within Ghana’s environmental governance system.
The research programme, supported by Gower Street, UK, brings together legal, environmental and socio-legal perspectives to examine how Ghana can move towards a legal framework that recognizes nature not only as a resource for human use, but also as an entity deserving legal protection in its own right.
The first published paper, titled “From Anthropocentrism to Earth-Jurisprudence: Evaluating the Rights of Nature within Ghana's Statutory and International Legal Frameworks,” was led by Dr. Dickson Adom, Director and Managing Campaigner of RoNAG, with Richard Obeng Mensah, Environmental Law Expert, and Harrison Kwabena Owusu, Research Officer at RoNAG.
The paper has been published in the Udayana Journal of Law and Culture, Volume 10, Issue 2, July 2026, pages 175–197.
Read the published paper: https://ejournal4.unud.ac.id/index.php/ujlc/article/download/3128/1776
What the research examined
The published study asks a central question: How can Ghana integrate indigenous systems of customary ecological stewardship with statutory environmental law to create an operational Rights of Nature framework?
Using a socio-legal narrative review, the researchers examined Ghana's constitutional provisions, environmental legislation, regulations, judicial decisions and relevant international legal instruments. The study also considered comparative experiences from countries including Ecuador, Bolivia, Uganda and Colombia.
Particular attention was given to Ghana's 1992 Constitution, the Environmental Protection Act, 2025 (Act 1124), the Environmental Assessment Regulations, 1999 (L.I. 1652), and the Land Act, 2020 (Act 1036).
The researchers examined these laws through the lens of the Rights of Nature and asked whether Ghana's existing legal architecture gives nature independent legal protection or continues to place human interests at the centre of environmental governance.
What the researchers found
The study finds that Ghana's existing legal architecture remains largely anthropocentric. In the paper's analysis, nature is predominantly treated through its value or utility to human beings rather than as a rights-bearing entity with inherent interests in its continued existence, flourishing and regeneration.
The researchers identify three connected issues:
1. Lack of Legal Standing for Nature: First, Ghana's constitutional framework protects the environment and provides for the management of natural resources, but it does not expressly recognize nature as a legal rights-holder. The study particularly examines Article 257(6), which places natural resources in the custody of the President in trust for the people of Ghana.
2. Institutional Fragmentation: Second, environmental governance is spread across several laws, institutions, and regulatory arrangements. According to the study, this fragmentation can create overlapping mandates, jurisdictional tensions, and gaps in enforcement. The paper uses the regulation of mining in forest reserves as one example of how different conservation and resource-use objectives can come into tension.
3. Disconnect from Indigenous Stewardship: Third, the study identifies a gap between Ghana's formal legal system and indigenous systems of environmental stewardship. Traditional authorities and communities have historically played roles in protecting forests, sacred groves, water bodies, and other ecologically important areas, yet these customary approaches have not been systematically integrated into Ghana's statutory environmental governance framework.
A proposed dual-governance approach
One of the central contributions of the paper is its proposal for a dual-governance Rights of Nature framework.
Under the proposed approach, state environmental institutions would continue to perform their statutory functions, while traditional custodians would receive a formally recognized role in protecting and representing ecosystems.
The researchers argue that traditional custodians should move beyond being treated primarily as property fiduciaries and should have legally recognized responsibilities and authority in ecosystem protection. The proposed model therefore seeks to connect Ghana's formal legal institutions with indigenous ecological stewardship rather than treating the two systems as separate spheres.
The paper proposes a phased pathway involving a unified Environmental Code in the short term, statutory recognition of customary co-governance in the medium term, and constitutional reform in the longer term to recognize the legal standing of nature.
What research gap does the study address?
The research responds to a gap identified in existing Rights of Nature scholarship.
According to the authors, much of the existing literature has developed along two separate paths. One focuses on formal legal mechanisms for recognizing the Rights of Nature, while another examines indigenous ecological knowledge and customary environmental practices. The two have not been sufficiently connected in terms of how they could operate together within Ghana's legal system.
The published study therefore moves the discussion from the question of whether nature should have rights towards the more practical question of how those rights could be incorporated into a legally pluralistic system such as Ghana's, where statutory institutions and traditional authorities already coexist.
This is particularly relevant to Ghana because environmental governance does not operate exclusively through state institutions. Traditional authorities, customary land arrangements and community-level environmental practices remain part of the country's social and legal reality.
Why this matters for Ghana
The question of the Rights of Nature has practical implications for how Ghana responds to environmental degradation.
Problems such as illegal mining, deforestation, and river pollution raise questions that cannot be addressed only through the creation of individual environmental regulations. They also raise questions about what the law considers worthy of protection, who can act when ecosystems are damaged, and which institutions have responsibility for preventing and responding to environmental harm.
The published research argues that Ghana's environmental laws would benefit from a framework that gives greater legal recognition to the intrinsic value of ecosystems while also strengthening the connection between statutory institutions and traditional ecological stewardship.
The significance of the study therefore lies in its attempt to connect environmental law, indigenous knowledge, customary governance and the emerging global Rights of Nature paradigm within a Ghanaian legal context.
Rather than proposing that Ghana simply reproduce legal models developed elsewhere, the researchers explore how an approach to Rights of Nature could be grounded in Ghana's own constitutional, statutory and customary realities.
The first of four research outputs
The published article represents the first of four major research components emerging from RoNAG's two-year socio-legal research programme supported by Gower Street, UK.
Three further research outputs are currently undergoing peer review.
These include a Rights of Nature comparative analysis of global implementation and adoption pathway research, a study on Ghanaian legal frameworks and stakeholder perspectives on integrating the Rights of Nature into environmental governance, and water analysis research focusing on Atetem.
Together, the four research components are intended to provide a broader evidence base for understanding the legal, institutional, stakeholder, and environmental dimensions of the Rights of Nature in Ghana.
The second strand, examining Ghana's legal frameworks and stakeholder perspectives, is particularly important because it complements the published legal analysis with evidence on how different stakeholders understand the possibility of integrating Rights of Nature into Ghana's environmental governance. A version of this work is already publicly available as a Research Square preprint. (Read the preprint: https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-9528146/v1)
Building an evidence base for environmental governance reform
For RoNAG, the research programme forms part of its wider work to advance discussion, research and public engagement around the Rights of Nature in Ghana.
The first peer-reviewed paper contributes academically to that wider work. It also creates a foundation for further discussion among researchers, environmental lawyers, policymakers, traditional authorities, civil society organizations and communities about the possible development of an ecocentric approach to environmental governance in Ghana.
Acknowledgements:
The authors acknowledge the support of Gower Street, UK, for the research. The published paper also states that although all three authors are affiliated with RoNAG, the views expressed in the manuscript do not necessarily represent the organization's official position.
Research Programme Progress:
The publication marks the first major scholarly output from the two-year research programme. With three further studies currently undergoing peer review, the research team expects the emerging body of work to contribute further evidence and analysis to Ghana's growing conversation about environmental law, ecological protection and the Rights of Nature.
