Each presenter also delivered clear requests for the judges to consider in their deliberation:

• “I would like to ask that you raise this case to the international level, and issue a moratorium on all fracked gas pipelines being built in the Southeast United States,” said Dr. Crystal Cavalier-Keck, Case Presenter of the Yesah Tribunal, Co-Founder of 7 Directions of Service and MVP Southgate impacted community member.
• “We respectfully request that the Yesah Tribunal, based on evidence of Mountain Valley Pipeline’s violations of the inherent Rights of Nature, make a formal request to members of the United States Congress to draft legislation to repeal Section 324 of the 2023 Fiscal Responsibility Act which mandated completion of the MVP and stripped jurisdiction from the courts where such Rights were being upheld. Additionally, due to the risks posed to all life, upstream, midstream, and downstream from MVP, we respectfully request the Tribunal urge the US House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure to fully investigate whether MVP can ever be safely operated at full capacity considering the age and condition of the pipe as revealed by the rupture during testing in Bent Mountain, VA on May 1st, 2024,” said Russell Chisholm, Co-Director, Protect Our Water, Heritage, Rights Coalition and MVP impacted community member.
• “The Haw River needs legal standing and rights to protect it. It has the right to naturally exist, flourish, regenerate, and evolve into abundant, clean, and unpolluted water. I recommend a complete turnaround from fossil fuels,” said Ayo Wilson, Director of Clean Energy & Climate Justice, West End Revitalization Association and Board President of the Haw River Assembly. 
• “When I hear of the destruction, even of the smallest things, from fish to other animals in the water, I know it is the fault of the U.S. government. We [indigenous people] are the original environmentalists. Nowadays you can’t go swimming anymore. You can’t eat the fish. We need to do something about that, because there is a new generation coming up, and we need them to have the same opportunities to have clean water and fish,” said Sachem Sam George.

After recess and deliberation, judges shared individual conclusions and insights, leading up to declaring the final verdict.

• “We are bound by our systems of oppression. We are bound by our Mother Earth and we are bound by the desecration of our Mother Earth. Plantations were never gone with emancipation, plantations became corporations. This is our reclamation, this is environmental justice”, said Judge La’Meshia Whittington.
• “MVP and government agencies have allowed the construction of a pipeline that does not meet health and safety guidelines. They would not allow the construction of a skyscraper on cement if it did not meet health and safety guidelines. MVP is clearly a violation of the absolute rights of the river,” said Judge Hartman Deetz.
• “Rights of Nature and natural law predate anything like the U.S. empire and U.S. rule of law. If we are going to decolonize the world we have to think from the smallest bacteria and mussels to the largest life forms that exist…. They are beings and not just things,” said Judge Heather Milton-Lightening. 

President of the Tribunal Casey Camp Horinek then concluded the Yesah Tribunal by delivering the final verdict in the name of the Rights of Mother Nature, Humanity and future generations:

1. MVP is a violation of the Rights of Nature and should be stopped.
2. MVP Southgate should not be approved.
3. The Yesah Tribunal demands to elevate this case as an International Rights of Nature Tribunal because it exemplifies everything that is happening to Indigenous communities.
4. The Yesah Tribunal demands bringing this case to other international bodies, including the UN.
5. The Yesah Tribunal recommends this case be brought before appropriate federal, state and local agencies as a violation of existing law, including Endangered Species Act, and Rights of Nature.
6. Section 324 of the 2023 Fiscal Responsibility Act must be repealed.
7. The Yesah Tribunal recognizes the inherent Rights of Rivers and their ecosystems, the inherent Rights of Indigenous Peoples and the inherent Rights of Nature.
8. We recognize the impacts and desecration of keystone species and living entities are a violation of the Rights of Nature.  
9. The Yesah Tribunal condemns existing, unjust laws that say corporations are rightsholders. The Yesah Tribuna recognizes Rights of Nature applies to all living things and the system of life only and are placed over corporate so-called “rights”. 
10. As Indigenous People, The Yesah Tribunal recognizes that what happens to Mother Earth happens to us all, and recognizes that there is a direct correlation between pipelines and MMIP/ MMIWG2S+ (Missing and Murdered Indigenous Relatives). 
11. The Yesah Tribuna accepts the recommendations made to visit the sites of impacted and potentially impacted communities along the MVP route, and the need for laws and regulatory structures that protect “us”.
12. The Yesah Tribuna recognizes there are many issues that need to be investigated, and will endeavor to research and include those as this case is elevated to higher, international tribunals.

The verdict delivered by the Judges was based on the provisions of the Universal Declaration of the Rights of Nature, ILO Convention 169, the United Nations and OAS Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, the Convention on Biodiversity, and the jurisprudence issued by the Inter-American System and the Universal System of Human Rights, as well as the legislation of the United States of America, and the legislation and jurisprudence advancing the rights of Nature in countries such as Ecuador, Bolivia, Colombia, Panama among others.