A Systems-based Tool for Transitioning to Law for a Mutually Enhancing Human-Earth Relationship

Geoffrey Garver

Ecological Economics, 2019, vol. 157, issue C, 165-174

Abstract: This article presents a tool for developing novel law and governance systems that support a mutually enhancing human-Earth relationship. Contemporary legal systems support perpetual economic growth, which underlies critical challenges in the human-Earth relationship. Fostering a mutually enhancing human-Earth relationship in a limits-insistent systems framework is a more desirable overarching goal. Because law is a complex adaptive system that evolves with other systems, a systems-based assessment methodology can reveal the extent to which barriers to a mutually enhancing human-Earth relationship in law and governance and related systems are locked in and enduring elements of such a relationship are locked out. Assessments of the degree of lock-in/lock-out can support development of strategies and priorities for shifting law and governance toward a mutually enhancing human-Earth relationship. This approach integrates leverage points for changing systems behavior and acknowledges path dependence that limits future possibilities. Relevant metrics and indicators are grounded in how human manipulation of material and energy affects Earth's life support systems. Adaptiveness, rigorous monitoring and caution against crossing systems thresholds are central elements in this assessment framework. Additional policy-oriented research using this framework would help show how to progress toward a mutually enhancing human-Earth relationship.

Keywords: Adaptiveness; Assessment framework; Complex adaptive systems; Law; Legal systems; Leverage points; Lock-in; Lock-out; Mutually enhancing human-Earth relationship; Path dependence (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ecolec:v:157:y:2019:i:c:p:165-174

DOI: 10.1016/j.ecolecon.2018.09.022

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