Harnessing the transformative potential of Earth System Law: From theory to practice

Abstract

Earth System Law has been proposed as an alternative conceptual framework to animate and support more adequate legal responses to planetary change. The emerging Earth System Law literature has sketched the contours of this new legal paradigm and reflected on its implications for the legal scholarly community. However, to date, less attention has been paid to the challenges of harnessing the transformative potential of Earth System Law; that is, its promise to evolve from a theoretically innovative perspective to facilitating positive, on-the-ground change. In this paper, we therefore ask: Which issues and questions will the Earth System Law research community have to engage with to ensure that Earth System Law is able to initiate and drive the processes of transformative change which it purports to support? And, which starting points can we identify for productively engaging with these issues? Responding to these questions, we articulate a theory-to-practice agenda which sets out departure points for working towards Earth System Law finding resonance in practice.

Keywords

• Anthropocene
• Earth System Law
• Transformative research
• Theory-to-practice
• Critical environmental law