Abstract
The centrality of rights in the ethical framework of law is inappropriate for grappling with humanity’s role in the Anthropocene. In its place, an ethic of responsibility needs to serve as the basis for evaluating our actions.
The cornerstones of the Anthropocene are paradoxical – including, at once, the entanglement of all species and a uniqueness of humanity. From an ethical perspective, the Anthropocene imposes upon humanity a positive duty to act with care.
Rights, especially individual property rights, bleed separation, hierarchy, subordination into how law interprets the world. It has set up a feeling of distance, abstraction and alienation between humanity and nature. This dominating view of the world has also brought us to this moment of Earth’s history.
Climate change is often presented in the literature as a proxy for the Anthropocene. We argue that biodiversity provides a significant alternate lens through which to conceptualise law in the context of global planetary change and unlock this ethical change. The planetary boundaries framework recognises that the climate and biosphere integrity boundaries are the two most important of the nine planetary boundaries. Meanwhile, the transgressions across the biosphere integrity (i.e. biodiversity) boundary are far greater than that of climate. At the same time, the more place-based characteristics of biodiversity provides an important, yet, to date underexplored lens, to challenge the abstraction of rights and understand responsibility in the Anthropocene. This therefore presents fertile grounding from which to challenge conceptualisations of the Anthropocene which frame all humans as similarly impacted and equally responsible for unprecedented changes in the Earth System.
We argue for a rejection of the rights-based ethic that through property has seen nature/biodiversity as instrumental. We call instead for a place-based relationship with the planet and the more-than-human which embraces human responsibility and the paradox of entanglement and uniqueness.
The cornerstones of the Anthropocene are paradoxical – including, at once, the entanglement of all species and a uniqueness of humanity. From an ethical perspective, the Anthropocene imposes upon humanity a positive duty to act with care.
Rights, especially individual property rights, bleed separation, hierarchy, subordination into how law interprets the world. It has set up a feeling of distance, abstraction and alienation between humanity and nature. This dominating view of the world has also brought us to this moment of Earth’s history.
Climate change is often presented in the literature as a proxy for the Anthropocene. We argue that biodiversity provides a significant alternate lens through which to conceptualise law in the context of global planetary change and unlock this ethical change. The planetary boundaries framework recognises that the climate and biosphere integrity boundaries are the two most important of the nine planetary boundaries. Meanwhile, the transgressions across the biosphere integrity (i.e. biodiversity) boundary are far greater than that of climate. At the same time, the more place-based characteristics of biodiversity provides an important, yet, to date underexplored lens, to challenge the abstraction of rights and understand responsibility in the Anthropocene. This therefore presents fertile grounding from which to challenge conceptualisations of the Anthropocene which frame all humans as similarly impacted and equally responsible for unprecedented changes in the Earth System.
We argue for a rejection of the rights-based ethic that through property has seen nature/biodiversity as instrumental. We call instead for a place-based relationship with the planet and the more-than-human which embraces human responsibility and the paradox of entanglement and uniqueness.
Original language | English |
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Title of host publication | 7th Frontiers in Environmental Law - IUCN Academy of Environmental Law Colloquium |
Subtitle of host publication | final summary notes and program |
Publisher | University of South Australia |
Pages | 5 |
Number of pages | 1 |
Publication status | Published - 18 Feb 2021 |
Event | 7th Frontiers in Environmental Law Colloquium, University of South Australia; IUCN Academy of Environmental Law - Duration: 25 Feb 2021 → 26 Feb 2021 |
Conference
Conference | 7th Frontiers in Environmental Law Colloquium, University of South Australia; IUCN Academy of Environmental Law |
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Period | 25/02/21 → 26/02/21 |