Book Review: “Ecological Jurisprudence: The Law of Nature and the Nature of the Law” by Alessandro Pelizzon
Ecological Jurisprudence: The Law of Nature and the Nature of the Law (Springer Nature, open source) by Alessandro Pelizzon
Alessandro Pelizzon’s Ecological Jurisprudence is a landmark contribution to the Rights of Nature movement. With remarkable depth and robust research, Pelizzon outlines the many different theories that have contributed to the anthropocentric worldview that dominates the Western world and its institutions.
A crucial component of developing any theoretical framework is to have clearly defined terms, and, in one of the most informative components of this book, Pelizzon clearly outlines thirty-one distinct yet related beliefs that come together to create an anthropocentric narrative. These include, for example:
the belief in the necessity or appropriateness of hierarchies
the belief that continued consumption of goods and services is an inherent good to be actively pursued
the belief that interests of the individual have primacy over that of any social group
the belief that a de-physicalized economy can grow endlessly because of new and more efficient technologies.
After outlining these interrelated ideas undergirding anthropocentrism, Pelizzon scrutinizes some of their theoretical underpinnings. For instance, he includes scholarship pointing out that even the most miraculous technology is likely to “fail to halt the rate of over-consumption of Earth’s resources,” (pg. 145) and that we should be wary of over-relying on notions of technological advancement to mitigate the harms of rapid climate change.
He instead points to environmental ethics as an important vessel for changing the way that humans think about the natural world. He argues that this field has expanded ecology into a multidisciplinary undertaking through the development of disciplines such as bioethics, ecofeminism, social ecology, ecotheology, and environmental history.
Alongside a thorough exploration of anthropocentric ideas and their consequences, Pelizzon goes to great lengths to outline the many historical and current alternative ways of being in the world that reject anthropocentrism. He emphasizes that the current environmental predicament is not one brought on by human actions at large, but rather “the specific actions that some cultures and some worldviews have engendered” (pg. 92). And he frames climate breakdown as the result of “specific imperial projects” (pg. 93) that have been carried out by these cultures.
Having established this backdrop, Pelizzon outlines the normative, regulatory, and legislative regimes that have made the current state of the Earth possible. As he demonstrates, it is anthropocentric legal systems that have made it possible for the land itself to be shaped according to individual human desires. Even so, damages to the Earth and its ecosystems have long been rendered “legally irrelevant” (pg. 99) in legal systems that are entangled with an anthropocentric worldview.
This reality makes a new legal framework—ecological jurisprudence—a necessity. Indeed, as the author points out, the law must be “observed in light of its evolutionary adaptability” (pg. 170), as legal systems that cannot adapt to environmental conditions necessarily become obsolete and, historically, have been replaced by more adaptive systems.
As Pelizzon demonstrates, it is the currently developing ecological jurisprudence—which he depicts more as a spectrum of theoretical possibilities than a single, unified approach—that provides our current legal institutions an alternative framework for engaging with Nature. This spectrum is broad enough to include the advances for Nature made by classic environmental laws, the additional protections afforded to other species through Rights of Nature initiatives, and the activism that has grown up alongside ecological jurisprudence.
Pelizzon rounds out his research by analyzing the different phases of the global Rights of Nature movement, leading into the current state of this movement as a host of nuanced theoretical scholarship. He also outlines distinct and highly varied trends within the movement (as well as their various ethical underpinnings) as it is growing in a wide array of cultures and legal institutions, such as the emphasis on local, municipal ordinances in the United States, and the top-down approach to enshrining Rights of Nature that is embodied in Ecuador’s laws.
While Pelizzon’s research and analysis primarily seeks to advance ecological jurisprudence, he concludes the book with a broad invitation for humanity to reacquaint itself with the places it inhabits and to embrace our “global nature as veritable children of the winds and seas” (pg. 392). It is this reorientation, even more than ecological jurisprudence, that will open us up to a renewed respect, awe, and gratitude toward the rest of the cosmos, and that leads to empathy, sympathy, and even compassion for all that exists.
Alessandro Pelizzon
This book will serve as an especially important tool to advocates for the Rights of Nature because it has been offered as a gift for all to read at no cost. In order to circumvent the inaccessibility of academic publishing, Pelizzon has made the book available to the public by publishing it as an open-access resource.
