Research problem
We might be living in a new geological epoch called the Anthropocene. The Anthropocene is characterised by: an increase in greenhouse gas concentrations and biodiversity loss; rising temperatures; increasing droughts and floods; depletion of ocean ecosystems and coastal zone alteration; rise in domesticated land and urbanization; increased inter and intra-generational human injustices; and multiple inter-species injustices. The central thesis of this project is that international environmental law (IEL) has been structurally complicit in causing the Anthropocene; IEL is unable to minimise and rectify Earth system damage; and IEL is unable to restore Earth system integrity. To this end, IEL reinforces the type of human behaviour that is causing the Anthropocene, while allowing environmental destruction, growing inter and intra-species hierarchies, human rights abuses, and socio-economic and ecological injustices. Lawyers acknowledge the deficiencies and structural failures of IEL, but refrain from confronting their insufficient understanding of the nature, reasons for, and extent of these deficiencies and failures; how they manifest and how they are created and maintained through law and politics; how they are related to the Anthropocene; what the full extent of the impact of these deficiencies and failures are on the Earth system; and how these could be addressed. Without a deeper multi-disciplinary understanding of these complex issues and their relationship with the Anthropocene, such as proposed by this project, IEL’s response to the Anthropocene will remain incomplete and insufficient.
Objectives
What is needed is a comprehensively critical interrogation of IEL, its deficiencies and deeper structural failures, and the reasons for, ways in, and extent to which these contribute to the Anthropocene, so that a contemporary solution can be crafted to reform IEL, including potential ways to institutionalize ecological custodianship obligations. As a response to this challenge, this project seeks to answer three overarching questions: i) what are the normative implications of the Anthropocene for law generally and for IEL specifically; ii) why and to what extent is IEL unable to respond to the socio-ecological crisis of the Anthropocene; and iii) how could IEL be reformed alongside a global ecological custodianship (GLEC) framework of care so that it can better respond to the Anthropocene? To answer these questions and by using methodologies situated in the juridical, complexity and political sciences domains, this project’s aim is to reveal, understand and appraise the deficiencies of IEL and its deeper structural failures in the context of the Anthropocene. It then seeks systematically to formulate and to apply an adequately theorized alternative GLEC framework to IEL in a way that could present realistic options to reform it in the short, medium and long term.
Societal relevance
Ultimately, alongside such a reformed conception of IEL, stakeholders such as states, the United Nations (UN), regional organizations such as the European Union (EU), and global civil society could be better able to contribute to the collective global sustainability effort in a manner that is tailor-made for the Anthropocene. Considering the critical global socio-ecological crisis, the increased scientific popularity of the Anthropocene framework, and urgency on the part of regulators to improve the outcomes of global environmental governance, this project is timely, incorporates an innovative multi-disciplinary methodology and will generate novel results of interest to the scientific community, the governance community and global civil society. It also shows direct impact for society at large to the extent that it will offer options to improve socio-ecological security through law. In particular, the current project is relevant for and comprehensively responds to global, regional and national governance priorities that relate to
