The Routledge Handbook of Law and the Anthropocene

by Peter D. Burdon (Editor), James Martel (Editor)

Overview

The Routledge Handbook of Law and the Anthropocene provides a critical survey into the function of law and governance during a time when humans have the power to impact the Earth system.

The Anthropocene is a "crisis of the earth system." This book addresses its implications for law and legal thinking in the twenty-first century. Unpacking the challenges of the Anthropocene for advocates of ecological law and politics, this handbook pursues a range of approaches to the scientific fact of anthropocentrism, with contributions from lawyers, philosophers, geographers, and environmental and political scientists. Rather than adopting a hubristic normativity, the contributors engage methods, concepts, and legal instruments in a way that underscores the importance of humility and an expansive ethical worldview. Contributors to this volume are leading scholars and future leaders in the field. Rather than upholding orthodoxy, the handbook also problematizes received wisdom and is grounded in the conviction that the ideas we have inherited from the Holocene must all be open to question.

Engaging such issues as the Capitalocene, Gaia theory, the rights of nature, posthumanism, the commons, geoengineering, and civil disobedience, this handbook will be of enormous interest to academics, students, and others with interests in ecological law and the current environmental crisis.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780367439781
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	05/18/2023
Pages:	386
Product dimensions:	6.88(w) x 9.69(h) x (d)

About the Author

Peter D. Burdon is Associate Professor at Adelaide Law School, University of Adelaide, Australia.

James Martel is Professor of Political Science at San Francisco State University, USA.

Table of Contents

Contributors

Interrogating the Anthropocene by Peter Burdon and James Martel

PART 1

First Laws

1 The Problem with Sustainable Development in the Anthropocene Epoch: Reimagining International Environmental Law’s Mantra Principle Through Ubuntu

Louis J. Kotzé, Sam Adelman, and Felix Dube

2 The Sovereign Order of Tiƞa: Enduring Traditions of Earth Jurisprudence in Africa

Anatoli Ignatov

3 The Super-Factual Anthropocene and Encounters with Indigenous Law

Kirsten Anker and Mark Antaki

PART II

Subjects of the Anthropocene

4 The Anthropocene Archive: Human and Inhuman Subjects and Sediments

Kathleen Birrell

5 We, Earthbound People: Constituent Power in Entangled Times

Daniel Matthews

6 Chastened Humanism and/or Necrotic Anthropocene: Transcendence toward Less

Ira Allen

PART III

Landscapes of Hope and Despair

7 Biodiversity: The Neglected Lens for Reimagining Property, Responsibility, and Law for the Anthropocene

Paul J. Govind and Michelle Lim

8 The Law of the Sea: Oceans, Ships, and the Anthropocene

Renisa Mawani

9 Ocean Acidification and the Anthropocene: An Emergency Response

Prue Taylor

10 Outer Space in the Anthropocene

Emily Ray

PART IV

Ecological and Earth Systems Law

11 Taming Gaia 2.0: Earth System Law in the Ruptured Anthropocene

Rakhyun E. Kim

12 Collapse or Sustainability?: Ecological Integrity as a Fundamental Norm of Law

Klaus Bosselmann

13 Making Ecological Integrity Human-Inclusive in the Anthropocene

Geoffrey Garver

PART V

Dignity and Human Rights

14 The Anthropocene and Human Rights: A New Context and the Need to Revisit Collective Human Concerns

Karen Morrow

15 Dignity in the Anthropocene

Erin Daly and Dina Lupin

PART VI

Regulating Nature and Nature Regulates

16 Regulating Nature and the Rule of Law

Han Somsen

17 Solar Geoengineering and the Challenge of Governing Multiple Risks in the Anthropocene

Kerryn Brent

18 The Transformative Power of Receptivity: Building a Smart Political Energy Grid in Response to Planetary Ecological Crisis

Romand Coles and Lia Haro

PART VII

Imagination and Utopia

19 Imagined Utopias

Benjamin J. Richardson

20 Myth for the Anthropocene

Peter D. Burdon and James Martel

21 The Nomos of Creativity in the Anthropocene

Afshin Akhtar-Khavari and Lachlan Hoy

22 Learning Ecological Law: Innovating Legal Curriculum and Pedagogy

Kate Galloway and Nicole Graham

PART VIII

Post-Script

23 Law, Responsibility, and the Capitalocene: In Search of New Arts of Living

Sally Wheeler and Anna Grear in Conversation with Peter Burdon

Index

Editorial Reviews

"This book opens up along a new horizon of what Anthropocene might mean for human juridical responsibility. Exceptionally interdisciplinary, this is a tapestry of perspectives that eschews romanticisation and remains critical throughout, reaching back to the indigenous roots of first laws and extending to new takes on geoengineering. This is a truly planetary book and perhaps its main lesson is this: that human exceptionalism must and can be translated into human responsibilisation with regards to our planet. If you want to find the tools to do this, read this book." Andreas Philippopoulos-Mihalopoulos, The Westminster Law & Theory Lab, London

"Burdon and Martel have brought us an exciting and diverse collection of interdisciplinary essays that address today’s most urgent and critical questions. The authors marshal a strikingly wide range of conceptual resources, inspiring us to reimagine the human and the rules by which we live. It is abounding in creativity when we most need it!" Hasana Sharp, McGill University, Canada

From the Publisher