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- Title
THE POLITICAL ECOLOGY OF EARTH SYSTEM LAW: OUTLINING A LEX CAPITALOCENAE.
- Authors
AUZ, JUAN
- Abstract
Earth System Law (ESL) is a novel conceptual framing that seeks to overcome the underpinnings and shortcomings of international environmental law (IEL). Therefore, ESL can be broadly defined as a response from law to the socio-ecological crisis in the Anthropocene. It is an epistemic dialogue between Earth system science and social science-based governance. Law, in this context, is the normative outcome of the engagement with the spatial and temporal complexities of the Earth system. Despite ESL's necessary effort to reimagine IEL's status quo, the inchoate literature developing its contours and aspirations neglects crucial insights from critical scholars. These insights, resulting from identifying and analyzing fundamental problems with the tenets and operation of international law, could improve the current conceptualization of ESL. Scholars from the Global South and North, who critically engage with the study of international law, are using a panoply of theoretical and methodological tools to demystify a universalist, egalitarian, and rights-based international legal order. ESL, in this context, could be deemed a critical response to the global environmental regime. However, some of its theoretical building blocks reproduce certain aspects critical international law scholars are questioning. For instance, ESL heavily relies on the Anthropocene as a metaphor to highlight humanity's role in disturbing global life-support systems. In doing so, ESL obliterates the historical and geopolitical dimensions of imperial expansionism and its present continuities in power asymmetries, thus obfuscating differentiated responsibilities for the ecological crisis. Several scholars, mainly those identifying with Third World Approaches to International Law (TWAIL), have extensively articulated the latter critique. However, the ESL literature does not always retlect their transformative ideas and contributions. Furthermore, arguments from scholars that roam the field of Political Economy and the Law should be more visibly spelled out iii ESL literature. This gap might lead to the concealment of the role of Racial Capitalism in the making and operation of environmental law. Against this backdrop, this article aims to answer the following question: what insights from selected critical international law perspectives can inform ESL's nascent conceptualization to avoid reproducing certain questionable assumptions? This article will answer this question by drawing on a political ecology approach. That means the focus is on power relations and political economy in the context of ecological governance. This approach will avail itself of a literature review of TWAIL, Law and Political Economy, and socio-ecology. The article is therefore structured around the development of three main critiques. Firstly, it will contest the Anthropocene as a problematic socio-historical point of departure. Secondly, it will interrogate Global Constitutionalism as the plausible vehicle for ESL's implementation. And thirdly, it will explore the relevance of interrelational ontologies to understand and include subaltern knowledge to reimagine international law. The paper reinforces the conceptualization of ESL as a transformational alternative to IEL by integrating valuable critical knowledge.
- Subjects
POLITICAL ecology; EARTH system science; INTERNATIONAL environmental law; ECONOMICS; ONTOLOGY
- Publication
Wisconsin International Law Journal, 2023, Vol 40, Issue 2, p217
- ISSN
0743-7951
- Publication type
Article