Calls have been made to grant Scotland’s River Clyde, rising in Lanarkshire and flowing through Glasgow to the Firth of Clyde, a legal ‘right to personhood’ to safeguard its waterways from pollution and over-development. Writer Louise Welsh and architect Jude Barber are urging people to back their petition to protect the river and enshrine its wellbeing in law.
‘Right to personhood’ is a mechanism which has been used in other places in the world, and follows the precepts of the Universal Declaration of the Rights of Rivers (UDRR). This plan, created by the Earth Law Centre, recognizes rivers as living entities with fundamental rights, such as the right to flow unobstructed, to be free from pollution, have native biodiversity and the right to regeneration and restoration.
