On 26 June 2025, the Centre for Sustainable Development at the University of Gdańsk organised a debate entitled ‘Legal personality of rivers in Poland’ at the Welcome Centre of the University Library.
The event was opened by the Director of the Centre for Sustainable Development at the University of Gdańsk, Sylwia Mrozowska, PhD, DSc, Professor at the University of Gdańsk.
The lecture ‘The state of rivers in Poland – a natural perspective’ was presented by Dawid Weisbrodt, PhD, coordinator of the Education for Sustainable Development programme at the Centre for Sustainable Development at the University of Gdańsk, discussing the current state of water quality and the challenges associated with its protection.
During the panel discussion entitled ‘Can a river be a legal entity?’, participants discussed the following issues:
- Maciej Nyka, PhD, DSc, Professor at the University of Gdańsk, Head of the Department of Public Economic Law and Environmental Protection, Faculty of Law and Administration, University of Gdańsk – the effectiveness of granting legal personality to rivers as a tool for protecting the aquatic environment and the possibilities of using this form to prevent ecological disasters.
- prof. Maria Mendel, professor at the Department of Social Pedagogy, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Gdańsk – the impact of legal recognition of rivers as entities on environmental education of young people and the role of the language we use to talk about nature in shaping social attitudes.
- Stanisław Kordasiewicz, PhD, assistant professor at the Faculty of Artes Liberales, University of Warsaw – assumptions of the draft law on the legal personality of the Oder, difficulties in legally defining the scope of the river’s rights and obligations, and the main legislative challenges.
- Wojciech Falkowski, initiator and coordinator of the Climate Manifesto social campaign and founder of the Business for Climate Foundation – the business community’s response to the concept of legal personality for rivers and the possibility of reconciling this approach with economic development.
- Anna Jastrzębska, Head of the New Media Department at the Ministry of Climate and Environment – the place of the idea of legal personality for rivers in the broader environmental protection system in Poland and planned further inter-ministerial work and public consultations.
A video recording of the event will be published soon.