O'Donnell and Talbot-Jones (2018) analyze which major governance move?

• A. It argues rivers should be owned by corporations.
• B. It claims laws cannot change environmental governance.
• C. It suggests only protection through treaties.
• D. It examines legal frameworks granting rights to rivers; legal innovation; alternative governance models.

Answer: (D)

The main idea being tested is how governance around rivers is changing through legal recognition and new institutional arrangements. O’Donnell and Talbot-Jones (2018) focus on shifts in environmental governance that move beyond traditional regulation by the state alone. They examine legal frameworks that grant rights to rivers, enabling they to be treated as stakeholders with standing to sue or demand protection, and they explore legal innovations and alternative governance models that arise from this shift. This includes things like rights-of-nature approaches, river guardians, novasites of governance such as river trusts or co-governance arrangements, and treaty-like mechanisms that embed ecological and community interests into decision-making. The emphasis is on how law can create more robust protections and new forms of authority and accountability for rivers, not on private corporate ownership, the idea that laws cannot change governance, or a sole reliance on treaties.

The other options don’t fit because they either misrepresent the direction of governance change (ownership by corporations), assert an unlikely blanket claim about laws never changing governance, or reduce governance to treaties alone, whereas the paper highlights a range of legal frameworks and innovative, alternative governance approaches.