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Earth Law: Emerging Ecocentric Law—A Guide for Practitioners is a book for students and practicing lawyers who seek to preserve a habitable planet and question whether current environmental law is sufficient for the task. Earth law is the emerging body of ecocentric law for protecting, restoring, and stabilizing the functional interdependency of Earth’s life and life-support systems. Earth law may be expressed in constitutional, statutory, common law, and customary law, as well as in treaties and other agreements both public and private. It is a rapidly developing field in many nations, municipalities, Indigenous communities, and international institutions. This course of study is for students and lawyers who know that nature and human environmental rights need to have seats at the table of law—in courts, legislatures, administrative bodies, enforcement agencies, and civil society.
Professors and students will benefit from:
- The first legal coursebook comprehensively addressing ecocentric law and jurisprudence
- Thorough exploration of critical, rapidly evolving topics such as rights of future generations, atmospheric trust litigation, the public trust doctrine, ecocide, the climate necessity defense, Indigenous legalities, and rights of nature laws in their many forms
- Expansive examination of the settings in which Earth law is developing and the principles of Earth jurisprudence on which it is based
- A penetrating critique of environmental law frameworks developed since the 1970s.
- Practical and theoretical foundations for developing systems of ecological governance and the ethical responsibilities of lawyers, individually and collectively
- Accumulated knowledge, experience, and perspective of more than 20 authors and editors active in the field
- Practical tools for the Earth law practitioner’s toolbox
