Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-fbnjt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-10-31T23:37:10.563Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

President’s Farewell Message: The Anthropocene, Earth Jurisprudence, and the Rights of Nature

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 December 2020

Hiroshi FUKURAI*
Affiliation:
University of California, Santa Cruz, USA

Abstract

A new paradigmatic shift in confronting the climactic endgame of the Anthropocene in Asia is in order. Scientific studies warned that Asia would become the epicentre of anthropogenic catastrophes and environmental disasters in the world. As the outgoing Asian Law and Society Association (ALSA) president, I wish to contribute to critical discussions on two issues: (1) Earth Jurisprudence and (2) the Rights of Nature. These legal concepts must be critically examined, discussed, and developed by socio-legal researchers and policy-makers in order to avert the impending crises of the Anthropocene in Asia. This report examines the recent development of a robust movement toward Earth Jurisprudence in multiple countries of Asia, the Americas, and the Pacific—that is, countries that have recently enshrined the concept of the Rights of Nature into their legal system through transforming nature into rights-bearing entities in order to protect them from harmful human activities. Failing any significant remedial measures, many Asian cities, shores, and coastlines, including the archipelagos of multiple island states in the Pacific Ocean and the Indian Ocean may soon disappear due to the many decades of egregious human activities of industrialized countries and the corporate world. A robust system of Earth Jurisprudence must be established, in which the Rights of Nature must be imbedded in the centre of legislative and constitutional discussions and deliberations.

Type
2019 Annual Conference of the Asian Law and Society Association
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Asian Journal of Law and Society

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

The author thanks Professors Kota Fukui and Yuka Kaneko who served as the organizers of the Fourth ALSA Conference in Osaka, Japan, 12–15 December 2019.

*

President of the Asian Law and Society Association (ALSA, 2018-2019) and Professor of Sociology and Legal Studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz, USA. Correspondence to Hiroshi Fukurai, Professor of Sociology & Legal Studies, University of California, Santa Cruz, CA 95064, USA. E-mail address: hfukurai@ucsc.edu.

References

REFERENCES

Albeck-Ripka, Livia, Kwai, Isabella, Fuller, Thomas et al. (2020) “It’s an Atomic Bomb: Australia Deploys Military as Fires Spread,” NY Times, 4 January.Google Scholar
Bechtel, Sebastian (2019) “Legal Rights of Rivers: An International Trend?ClientEarth, 13 March.Google Scholar
Berlinger, Joshua (2019) “66 People Now Killed by Flooding in Jakarta, and More Rain Appears to Be on the Way,” CNN, 6 January.Google Scholar
Berry, Thomas (1999) The Great Work: Our Way into the Future, New York: Broadway Books.Google Scholar
Biggs, Shannon (2017) “New Report Shows Rights of Nature Emerges as Alternative to UN Climate Framework,” Movement Rights, 2 December.Google Scholar
Boyd, David R. (2017) The Rights of Nature: A Legal Revolution that Could Save the World, Toronto: ECW Press.Google Scholar
Boyle, Gary (2019) “Revised Forecast Puts Bangkok Underwater by 2050,” NY Times, 2 November.Google Scholar
Carrington, Damian (2017) “Earth’s Sixth Mass Extinction Event Underway, Scientists Warn,” the Guardian, 10 July.Google Scholar
Chestney, Nina (2018) “Maldives Tells U.N. Climate Talk: ‘We Are Not Prepared to Die’,” Reuters, 13 December.Google Scholar
Cullinan, Cormac (2011) Wild Law: A Manifesto for Earth Justice, Jackson, VT: Chelsea Green Publishing.Google Scholar
Das, Pallav (2017) “Rights of Nature and the River Ganga,” Radical Ecological Democracy, 27 June.Google Scholar
Ecozoictimes.com (2020) “History of Earth Jurisprudence,” The Ecozoic Times, https://ecozoictimes.com/ecozoic-movements/earth-jurisprudence/history-of-earth-jurisprudence/ (accessed 15 May 2020).Google Scholar
Ellsmoor, James, & Zachary, Rosen (2016) “Kiribati’s Land Purchase in Fiji: Does It Make Sense?Devpolicy, 11 January.Google Scholar
Ferguson, Sarah (2019) “Heavy Monsoon Rains Drench Rohingya Refugee Camps in Bangladesh,” UNICEF, 9 July.Google Scholar
Flanagan, Richard (2020) “Australia Is Committing Climate Suicide,” NY Times, 3 January.Google Scholar
Gander, Kashmira (2020) “Smoke From Australia’s Fires Has Traveled 6,800 Miles Across the Ocean to Chile,” Newsweek, 7 January.Google Scholar
Gluckman, Ron (2019) “Bangkok: The Sinking City Faces Severe Climate Challenges,” Urban Land, 9 June.Google Scholar
Harari, Yuval Noah (2019) 21 Lessons for the 21st Century, New York: Random House.Google Scholar
Hough, Peter (2014) Environmental Security: An Introduction, London: Routledge.Google Scholar
John, Tara (2019) “Jakarta Floods Leave Dozens Dead and 60,000 Displaced,” CNN, 2 January.Google Scholar
Kahn, Brian (2020) “An Estimated 1.25 Billion Animals Have Perished in Australia’s Bushfires,” Gizmodo, 8 January.Google Scholar
Kulp, Scott A., & Strauss, Benjamin H. (2019) “New Elevation Data Triple Estimates of Global Vulnerability to Sea-Level Rise and Coastal Flooding,” Nature Communications, 29 October.Google ScholarPubMed
La Follette, Cameron, & Maser, Chris (2020) Sustainability and the Rights of Nature in Practice, Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press.Google Scholar
Lu, Denise, & Flavelle, Christoher (2019) “Rising Seas Will Erase More Cities by 2050, New Research Shows,” NY Times, 29 October.Google Scholar
May, James R., & Daly, Erin (2019) Global Judicial Handbook on Environmental Constitutionalism. New York: UN Environment Program.Google Scholar
Milko, Victoria, & Clare, Hammond (2019) “The World’s Largest Refugee Camp Is Becoming a Real City,” Citylab, 27 September.Google Scholar
Radicalecologicaldemocracy.org (2016) “Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund: Bringing Real Democracy and Protection to Communities and their Environments,” Radical Ecological Democracy, 6 April, https://www.radicalecologicaldemocracy.org/community-environmental-legal-defense-fund-bringing-real-democracy-and-protection-to-communities-and-their-environments/ (accessed 10 June 2020).Google Scholar
Rafferty, John P. (2015) “Nepal Earthquake of 2015,” Encyclopedia Britannica, 8 May.Google Scholar
Ray, Saptarsh (2018) “Animals Accorded Same Rights as Humans in Indian State,” The Telegraph, 5 July.Google Scholar
Rosane, Olivia (2019) “Typhoon Kills 28, Displaces More than 50,000 in the Philippines,” EcoWatch, 27 December.Google Scholar
Roy, Eleanor Ainge (2019) “‘One Day We’ll Disappear’: Tuvalu’s Sinking Islands,” The Guardian, 16 May.Google Scholar
Safi, Michael (2017) “Ganges and Yamuna Rivers Granted Same Legal Rights as Human Beings,” The Guardian, 21 March.Google Scholar
Samuel, Sigal (2019) “This Country Gave All Its Rivers Their Own Legal Rights,” Vox, 18 August.Google Scholar
Schipani, Andres (2010) “Grassroots Summit Calls for International Climate Court,” The Guardian, 23 April.Google Scholar
Sharma, Bhadra, & Mike, Ives (2019) “Flooding Kills Dozens in Nepal as Waters Rise Across Asia,” NY Times, 15 July.Google Scholar
Vaktania, Saurabh (2019) “Mumbai Receives Record Monsoon Rains in 2019,” India Today, 16 September.Google Scholar