International Environmental Law In The Anthropocene: Towards An Earth System Law Framework
Aditi Rao, MNLU Nagpur
ABSTRACT
“Man is both, creature and moulder of his environment”, as proclaimed in the UN Stockholm conference of 1972, is in essence, the idea of the ‘Anthropocene’. The term ‘Anthropocene’, as coined by atmospheric chemist Paul Crutzen and biologist Eugene Stromer, refers to an unprecedented ongoing geological event wherein humans, or homo sapiens are posited to be influential geological forces shaping the environment around them with their activities. Given such an impact, a gap is seen as the current environmental laws do not suffice for the regulation of the amount of ecological damage caused by humans to the environment, as evidenced by the destructive mass-scale industrialisation prevalent in mostly developing and developed countries. There are two main arguments made regarding the insufficiency in regulation and complicity in maintaining the Anthropocene respectively and the need for a more holistic framework to mitigate the detrimental impacts of human activities. Its principal limitations include fragmentation across multiple treaties and institutions, continued reliance on State consent and sovereignty, weak enforcement mechanisms, an anthropocentric orientation, and insufficient coordination between scientific knowledge and legal decision-making. Therefore, it is argued that the perspective through which the environment and its humans must be governed is through that of an Earth system perspective, a holistic understanding of the Earth as one single entwined socio-ecological system. The purpose of this paper is to examine the regulatory gaps and challenges posed by international environmental legislations and propose a framework of binding Earth system laws that would address the aforementioned lacunae and rise to meet the current challenges posed.
Keywords: Anthropocene, Earth System Laws, Environment Laws, New Paradigm.
