Rights, Not «To» but «Of» the Nature: Legal Deal with Meal
Authors: Ustahaliloğlu M. K. 
Published: March 2023

The dilemma that human-beings are in is that; while they are aware that the sustainment of their own living fully depends on the sustainment of the natural-beings’ living, on the one hand, they also want to use (usus), exploit (fructus), and even abuse (abusus) them, on the other. This dilemma has emerged after the viewing of the natural-beings as «resources» has proved that they are not endless by causing the extinction of many of them. It is an undeniable fact that natural-beings are the only sources for the sustainability of all beings’ life. However; this, by no means, means that they can be used, exploited, and abused as one wishes. For, there is a miraculous circulation in nature that can be summarized as the «butterfly effect»: The planet we live on is like a closed circuit; that is, no being vanishes but just rots, dissolves and transforms into another being. Let’s take a look at the water: it drops from a cloud onto the earth in its pure form; it forms the rivers, lakes, seas, and oceans; it is absorbed by the soil; after being absorbed from there by a plant, via the roots thereof, it is mixed up with other chemicals therein and been stored thereby in the form of a fruit appetizing for animals and humanbeings; it turns into the blood after being digested in these beings’ bodies; it travels through the veins within their bodies; it returns back to the nature through the excretion and sweating processes or their burial upon the death of these beings; from where it evaporates to form another cloud. Let’s take a look at the oxygen: it exists in, in addition to the air, all the places mentioned above wherein exists the water, of which it is a component, together with a pair of hydrogens — which is such a miraculous composition: a couple of flammable gas together with a burner gas, instead of creating a fire, creates a fire-extinguisher liquid-; it flies all around along with other gases; as a result of being inhaled by animal and human-beings at all-times and by plants only at night-times, it couples with another oxygen and one carbon and turns into a carbon-dioxide; returns back to its original form as a result of the photosynthesis process of plants during daytime.

Therefore; the soil formed by minerals and organic materials, the Sun, the air, and the water, all together make the living of plants, animals, and human-beings possible. Plants make it possible for almost all animals and humanbeings to live, and animals make it possible for most human-beings and some plants to live. These two naturalliving-beings, besides water, should be consumed as the only source of food for the continuation of human life. The exact same particles in these beings, just in the same way they have been doing so since the beginning of time, do also compose the bodies of human-beings that consume them by eating and drinking; and they will again transform back to their original states in order to form a new corpse that will host a new soul after the death of these human-beings too.

The natural-beings that we now see in their form of the meal are only unvanishable in their particle form as clearly seen in the extinct-natural-living-beings’ case of both plants and animals. This reality brings us to the conclusion that; we must protect them, i.e., stop destroying them, at least for our own sake. The mostly used legal tool for this protection is a punishment-based method, in which the foreseen actions are prohibited as a rule by the legislator, and those who violate them are punished with the penalties prescribed by the courts. Two of the most important shortcomings of this method are to impose sanctions on unforeseen acts and to ensure that the foreseen sanctions serve to compensate the damaged natural-beings. There is an alternative method, that is in use in a few countries, fulfilling the above-mentioned shortcomings: attributing legal personality to natural-beings. According to this; first, an action may be brought for compensation for damage to a natural-being, whether foreseen by the legislator or not; secondly, the court considers the actual damage done to the naturalbeing instead of a predetermined fixed amount as in the case of a fine; thirdly, the compensation determined by the court serves to compensate the damages of the natural-being. Such a change of perspective towards them would make a huge difference in simplifying and effectuating their protection method.

In this paper, we will examine a new legal personality status, which we define as «legal deal with the meal» by analogy with «social contract», under the name of «natural personality», which will enable natural-beings to have their own rights.