Steps Towards a Legal Ontological Turn: Proposals for Law's Place beyond the Human

Abstract

Environmental law remains grounded in a ‘one-world world’ paradigm. This ontological structure asserts that, regardless of variation in world-construing, all beings occupy one ‘real’ world of discrete entities. The resulting legal system is viewed as an independent set of norms and procedures regulating the ‘human’ use of the ‘environment’ by specifying allowable harm rather than adjudicating on mutually enhancing relations. This legal form fails to fulfil its purpose of prevention and remediation, and constitutes a significant barrier to overcoming world(s)-destroying conditions. As such, we take up the injunction for a ‘legal ontological turn’ so as to lay bare these assumptions, and to be able to move beyond their constraints into a renewed exploration at the intersection of vastly differing legalities. In dialogue with systems-grounded ecological jurisprudence(s), Indigenous legal thinking, and anthropological insight, we seek to ground future discussions towards building a truly earth-sustaining form of environmental law for all beings.

Crossing (Conceptual) Boundaries of Transnational Environmental Law

“…In 'Steps Towards a Legal Ontological Turn: Proposals for Law's Place beyond the Human', Emille Boulot and Joshua Sterlin are interested in how the framing of environmental law justifies human exploitation of nature, seen as an object devoid of meaning. 12 They lament the 'ontological assumption of a single objective, and an objectifiable reality' that underpins the field 13 and which 'continues to reinforce the constructed dichotomy between the sphere of the anthropos and that of the natural world'. 14 Boulot and Sterlin engage with the rights of nature discourse that has been widely analyzed in TEL.…”

Re-Thinking Felid–Human Entanglements through the Lenses of Compassionate Conservation and Multispecies Studies

“…These two bodies of scholarship are evolving simultaneously within their respective disciplines, however, the relationships between these two emerging fields and their parent disciplines have been markedly different. One key contrast is that while multispecies studies is becoming increasingly mainstream within the social sciences and humanities, pushing the scholarship in new directions [ 22 , 72 ], compassionate conservation’s call to incorporate the interests and welfare of individual animals in conservation science and practice has led to a heated debate in conservation literature [for review see 20]. If conservation is to transform its relationship to nature and animals, the impetus may have to “come from within the halls of science” [ 78 ], but this effort would be strengthened by collaboration with disciplines that have a history of ontological analysis and questioning.…”

“…Before proceeding, it must be noted that this article is focused on exploring the specific lineages of conservation paradigms, and therefore it engages primarily with Western ontological and epistemological traditions and assumptions. However, while conservation paradigms emerged in the West, they have been exported around the world through the processes of globalisation and international conservation policymaking, shaping the possibilities for people’s relationships with wild animals worldwide [ 22 ].…”

Regulating humanity's impact on the earth: The promise of transnational environmental law

“…Transnational law has also prompted a reconsideration of how socio‐legal theory fits within the globalized world order (e.g. Friedman, 1996), as scholars question the usefulness of pluralist accounts of the law for understanding legal developments within a new transnational context (Boulot & Sterlin, 2022).…”