【经济学人】旺格努伊河有了“人权”丨 2017.03.25丨总第855期

IT SOUNDS, admits Chris Finlayson, like a “pretty nutty ” idea. Yet the new law that declares the Whanganui river, New Zealand’s third-longest, a legal person, in the sense that it can own property, incur debts and petition the courts, is not unprecedented . Te Urewera, an area of forested hills in the north-east that used to be a national park, became a person for legal purposes in 2014. And around the world companies, foundations and assorted units of government have legal rights and responsibilities independent of the people who staff them. （读者试译句） All the same, New Zealanders have been joking about whether the Whanganui might now vote, buy a few beers (how old is it?) or be charged with murder if a swimmer drowns.

克里斯芬雷森承认，这听起来的确是个“疯狂”的主意。但是，新法宣布赋予新西兰第三大长河---旺格鲁伊河人权，包括拥有财产权、承担债务义务以及上诉等权利，不过这并非史无前例。位于东北部森林山脉的乌雷威拉曾经是国家级公园，她就在2014年成为了拥有人权的“法人”。 （期待您的翻译，明天会有针对这句话的长难句解析哟~） 因此，新西兰人也就一直开玩笑提到，旺格鲁伊河应该也可以参与投票，也可以买啤酒（这条河到底多少岁？），或者还应该为溺水而亡的人负责。

The law, which was approved on March 15th, stems from disputes over the Treaty of Waitangi, by which New Zealand’s indigenous Maori ceded sovereignty to British colonialists in 1840. The treaty was supposed to have protected Maori rights and property; it was observed mainly in the breach. In recent years the government has tried to negotiate settlements for breaches of the treaty with different Maori iwi, or tribes. For the Whanganui iwi, the idea of the river as a person is nothing new. The iwi professes a deep spiritual connection to the Whanganui: as a local proverb has it, “I am the river and the river is me.” The law acknowledges the river as a “living whole”, rather than trying to carve it up, putting to rest an ownership dispute that has dragged on for 140 years. When it was passed, members of the iwi in the gallery of parliament broke into a ten-minute song of celebration.

3月15日出台的该项法律出自1840年新西兰土著毛利人将主权割让给英国殖民者时关于《怀唐伊条约》的争端问题。该条约本应保护毛利人的权利和财产，但实际执行时却违背了这些原则。近年来，政府一直试图同各毛利部落商讨，以寻求条约的突破口。对于旺格鲁伊部落来说，赋予河以人权并不是什么新鲜事。部落人和旺格鲁伊河有着深厚的联系，正如当地一则谚语中描述的那样，“我就是河，河就是我。” 新法没有拆分旺格鲁伊河，而是承认她作为一个“完人”的身份，这解决了已经耽误了140年的所有权争端问题。当该法颁布的时候，就职国会的毛利人举行了长达10分钟的庆祝歌唱活动。

In practice, two guardians will act for the river, one appointed by the government and one by the iwi. Mr Finlayson, the minister in charge of negotiations tied to the Treaty of Waitangi, hopes the change will help bring those who do environmental damage to the river to book. Under the settlement the government will also pay the iwi NZ$80m ($56m) as compensation for past abuses and set up a fund of NZ$30m to enhance the “health and well-being” of the river. It is one of 82 deals that aim to remedy breaches of the treaty, including one with the Tuhoe iwi that made Te Urewera into a person.

在法律的具体实施过程中，会有两名守卫者守护旺格鲁伊河，他们一人来自政府，另一位来自部落。负责商讨《怀唐伊条约》的大臣芬雷森表示，希望这次改变能让破坏河流环境的行为成为过去历史。政府将也会出资八千万新西兰元（约合五千六百万美元）以修复之前的环境破坏问题，之后再投资三千万新西兰元保护河流的“健康”。这只是为了解决条约争端的82条项目中的一个，还有一个就是和土荷部落达成赋予旺格鲁伊河人权的约定。

Days after the law passed, an Indian court declared two of the biggest and most sacred rivers in India, the Ganges and Yamuna, to be people too. Making explicit reference to the Whanganui settlement, the court assigned legal “parents” to protect and conserve their waters. Local lawyers think the ruling might help fight severe pollution: the rivers’ defenders will no longer have to prove that discharges into them harm anyone, since any sullying of the waters will now be a crime against the river itself. There is no doubt that of the 1.3bn-odd people in India, the Ganges and the Yamuna are among the most downtrodden .

在新法颁布两天之后，印度法庭宣布印度最大最汹涌的恒河和亚穆纳河也拥有人权。仿效旺格鲁伊河成为“法人”的做法，该法庭还给河流安排了“法定父母”来保护水源。当地律师认为这个规定可能能够帮助解决污染问题，河流保护人士再也不用证明排泄污水的确有害河流了，因为现在任何水污染都将因为违反了“河权”而构成犯罪。毫无疑问，在13亿印度人口中，恒河和亚穆纳河受到的压迫与蹂躏最多。

• Downtrodden: adj.受欺压的，被蹂躏的

翻译 ▍栏目六第一组

审核 ▍ Arias

编辑 ▍喵喵