So far, we have completed WP1, a critical analysis of the current normative literature on territory and what it misses. We have taken the case of Antarctica (in which the PPI has previous expertise) to help rethink issues like the methodological nationalism and anthropocentrism characteristic of current theories of territory, the constitution of the political community for global systemic resources, and effective environmental protection under shifting climatic, geographic, and demographic conditions.
Regarding WP2 (focused mainly on the governance of ecosystems), we have been researching whether giving legal rights to nature would help in the transition towards more dynamic understandings of territory. We have critically scrutinized ‘relational values’ as a way of justifying the normative relevance of some environmental areas through the relations people have to it. We have also investigated whether resilience offers a property by which to delimit ecological systems in a non-arbitrary manner, in a way that would help towards a better governance of territory. We have begun researching ‘regions’ as providing a normatively relevant ecological foundation. We have worked on the idea of moving from sovereignty to guardianship in ecoregions: this would require a major shift in the standard understanding and exercise of sovereignty by states. The focus on guardianship also aligns with many non-Western worldviews, where the nonhuman natural world has always been in relation, rather than subject to, humans. We are also developing the idea of a protection paradox, which means that to protect a place (especially Global systemic resources) efficiently, one needs to carry out actions beyond that place.
Regarding WP3 (focused currently on how to attain just territorial transitions), we are investigating the relationship between sustainability, nature conservation, and social justice. The connection between sustainability and social justice is particularly interesting against the background of rethinking land-use concerns addressed in political thought through the lens of sustainability that allows from a more dynamic approach in conditions of environmental change.
As for WP4 (focused mainly on the movement of people due to climate change), we are investigating what the status of internally displaced people should reveal about the function and purpose of individual states and of the state system. Our thesis is that the legitimacy of individual states and of the system of states should be measured by how efficiently they coordinate for the protection of basic human rights. To do this, we start from international law both to critique it and to draw inspiration for a normative framework for dynamic territory.
Summing up, we are investigating and assembling the elements of a novel, more dynamic framework for territory: guardianship for ecoregions; rights of nature, which despite their contentious philosophical status may still be pragmatically advisable; sustainability understood as a requirement of social justice; and the constitution of a much more tightly coordinated system of states, to confront challenges like increased migration and the protection of ecoregions.
