Remedying Environmental Law's Flaws in a Time of Planetary Change: Is Earth System Law the Answer?

Olivia Woolley

Chapter 18 in Research Handbook on Global Governance, 2025, pp 411-430 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: Legal scholars working in environmental law and other legal sub-disciplines examine how changes in planetary conditions due to human-driven phenomena affect existing legal frameworks, particularly those concerned with environmental protection. Are legal approaches and concepts adopted before this major shift in the human–environment relationship became apparent still well founded? This chapter critically considers the views on these matters of scholars who contend that the Earth system should replace environmental places and features as the regulatory focus for laws concerned with maintaining the Earth's environmental capacities to support life. It argues that Earth system law scholars have misunderstood how the changing situation affects existing legal frameworks in key respects, and therefore their views on how law should respond to this are flawed. The chapter concludes by suggesting how laws would need to respond to a changing planet if the misunderstood aspects are understood correctly, while retaining a focus on protecting environments.

Keywords: Earth system; Earth system law; International environmental law; Ecological law; Complex adaptive system; Uncertainty (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
ISBN: 9781789906325
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