From the Bookseller
Faber has signed a “pioneering account” of the legal fight for the preservation of the natural world by barrister Monica Feria-Tinta. Senior commissioning editor Fiona Crosby pre-empted world all-language rights to A Barrister for the Earth from Sophie Scard at United Agents.
The publisher’s synopsis said: “Can a planet have legal rights? Could it be defended in a court of law? And who or what are we referring to when we refer to the right to life? In recent years, a quiet revolution has been taking place.
“Ordinary people have turned to courts around the world seeking justice for environmental damage: melting glaciers, sinking islands, extinction of species and more. These cases prompt a reinterpretation of the law itself, one which is likely to affect the life of every single person around the world.
“Monica Feria-Tinta is a barrister at the forefront of this new development, who advocates not just for people but also for nature itself, for the diversity of life that sustains us. A Barrister for the Earth will explore eight critical cases she has successfully fought – each of which are landmarks signalling that we are at an important juncture: the beginning of a shift in consciousness.”
Feria-Tinta specialises in public international law and was shortlisted for Barrister of the Year at The Lawyers’ Awards 2020 for her work in addressing climate change and environmental degradation. In 2020, she acted before the Constitutional Court of Ecuador in the Los Cedros case, the first “Rights of Nature” case in the world. Her work as counsel has helped secure a win in the Torres Strait Islanders case, a landmark moment in which the UN Human Rights Committee found a sovereign state responsible for lack of action in addressing climate change.
She said: “In June 2020, I found myself acting as an advocate not for a human client, but as a barrister for Earth. The case related to a cloud forest near the Equator-line in Ecuador, in which live species that cannot be found anywhere else in the world were being threatened with extinction by a gold-mine exploration.
“I appeared before the Constitutional Court of Ecuador arguing for the right of the spectacled bear, a variety of monkeys, fungus, frogs and the entire cloud forest itself to exist. A Barrister for the Earth is a deeply personal book which sheds light on the transformative power of the law in protecting the Earth.
“My journey, which I share in this book, has been humbling because of what I have found, and what those forests, rivers, islands, territories and the people protecting those worlds – our world – have taught me.”
Crosby added: “Each legal battle Monica describes is extraordinary: from her vital work alongside indigenous communities around the world to successfully arguing for the rights of nature itself. Her book will give readers an entirely new perspective on how we can preserve the natural world and demonstrates that we already have the tools we need to hold the biggest perpetrators of environmental damage to account.”
