The era of eco-crises signified by the Anthropocene trope is marked by rapidly intensifying levels of complexity and unevenness, which collectively present unique regulatory challenges to environmental law and governance. This volume sets out to address the currently under-theorised legal and consequent governance challenges presented by the emergence of the Anthropocene as a possible new geological epoch. While the epoch has yet to be formally confirmed, the trope and discourse of the Anthropocene undoubtedly already confront law and governance scholars with a unique challenge concerning the need to question, and ultimately re-imagine, environmental law and governance interventions in the light of a new socio-ecological situation, the signs of which are increasingly apparent and urgent. This volume does not aspire to offer a univocal response to Anthropocene exigencies and phenomena. Any such attempt is, in any case, unlikely to do justice to the multiple implications and characteristics of Anthropocene forebodings. What it does is to invite an unrivalled group of leading law and governance scholars to reflect upon the Anthropocene and the implications of its discursive formation in an attempt to trace some initial, often radical, future-facing and imaginative implications for environmental law and governance.

This book explores a range of plausible futures for environmental law in the new era of the Earth’s history: the Anthropocene. The book discusses multiple contemporary and future challenges facing the planet and humanity. It examines the relationship between environmental law and the Anthropocene at governance scales from the global to the local. The breadth of issues and jurisdictions covered by the book, its forward-looking nature, and the unique generational perspective of the contributing authors means that this publication appeals to a wide audience from specialist academics and policy-makers to a broader lay readership.

The Routledge Handbook of Law and the Anthropocene provides a critical survey into the function of law and governance during a time when humans have the power to impact the Earth system. The Anthropocene is a “crisis of the earth system.” This book addresses its implications for law and legal thinking in the twenty-first century. Unpacking the challenges of the Anthropocene for advocates of ecological law and politics, this handbook pursues a range of approaches to the scientific fact of anthropocentrism, with contributions from lawyers, philosophers, geographers, and environmental and political scientists. Rather than adopting a hubristic normativity, the contributors engage methods, concepts, and legal instruments in a way that underscores the importance of humility and an expansive ethical worldview. Contributors to this volume are leading scholars and future leaders in the field. Rather than upholding orthodoxy, the handbook also problematizes received wisdom and is grounded in the conviction that the ideas we have inherited from the Holocene must all be open to question. Engaging such issues as the Capitalocene, Gaia theory, the rights of nature, posthumanism, the commons, geoengineering, and civil disobedience, this handbook will be of enormous interest to academics, students, and others with interests in ecological law and the current environmental crisis.

Anthropocene is the proposed name for the new geological epoch in which humans have overwhelming impact on planetary processes. This edited volume invites reflection on the meaning and role of law in light of changing planetary realties. Taking the concept of the Anthropocene as a starting point, the contributions to this book address emerging legal issues from a transnational environmental law perspective. How law interacts with, and how law governs, global environmental problems is a challenge that legal scholars have approached with vigour over the last decade. More recently, the concept of the Anthropocene has become a topic that researchers have also begun to grapple with by engaging with disciplines beyond legal scholarship. One avenue of research that has emerged to address global environmental problems is transnational environmental law. Adopting ‘transnational law’ as a lens or framework through which to analyse environmental law takes a broader approach to the ways in which law may be assessed and deployed to meet planetary challenges. The chapters within this book provide a timely intervention into the theoretical and practical approaches of transnational environmental law in a time of significant uncertainty and environmental and human crises. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of Transnational Legal Theory.

This Handbook is a collection of contributions of more than 300 researchers who have worked to grasp the Anthropocene, this new geological epoch characterised by a modification of the conditions of habitability of the Earth for all living things, in its biogeophysical and socio-political reality. These researchers also sought to define a historical and prospective anthropology that integrates social, economic, cultural and political issues as well as, of course, environmental ones. What are the anthropological changes needed to ensure that our human adventure will be able to continue in the Anthropocene? And what are the educational and political issues involved? Anthropocene is fast becoming a widely-used term, but thus far, there been no reference work explaining the thoughts of the greatest experts of the present day on this subject (at the intersection of biogeophysical and socio-political knowledge). A scientific and political concept (but which is also the conceptual vehicle for conveying the scientific community's sense of concern), this complex term is explained by international experts as they reflect on scientific arguments taking place in earth system science, the social sciences and the humanities. What these researchers from different disciplines have in common is a healthy concern for the future and how to prepare for it in the Anthropocene and also the identification of possible anthropological changes. This Handbook encourages readers to immerse themselves in reflections on the human adventure through descriptions of our differing heritages and the future that is in the process of being written.

This comprehensive Research Handbook is the first study to link law and Earth system science through the epistemic lens of the planetary boundaries framework. It critically examines the legal and governance aspects of the framework, considering not only each planetary boundary, but also a range of systemic issues, including the ability of law to keep us within the planetary boundaries’ safe operating space.

There is persuasive evidence suggesting we are on the brink of human-induced ecological disaster that could change life on Earth as we know it. There is also a general consensus among scientists about the pace and extent of global ecological decay, including a realisation that humans are central to causing the global socio-ecological crisis. This new epoch has been called the Anthropocene. Considering the many benefits that constitutional environmental protection holds out in domestic legal orders, it is likely that a constitutionalised form of global environmental law and governance would be better able to counter the myriad exigencies of the Anthropocene. This book seeks to answer this central question: from the perspective of the Anthropocene, what is environmental constitutionalism and how could it be extrapolated to formulate a global framework? In answering this question, this book offers the first systematic conceptual framework for global environmental constitutionalism in the epoch of the Anthropocene.

The Canada–European Union Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) is hailed as the gold standard for trade agreements. It addresses tariffs on traded goods, favoured status for EU and Canadian exporters, trade in services, and technical barriers to trade, while also seeking coordination between government agencies to promote regulatory cooperation, harmonization, and mutual recognition of standards. As the world retreats towards populism and protectionism, CETA Implementation and Implications provides a vital examination of this contemporary economic collaboration between developed states, which serves as a model for other progressive regional trade agreements. This book offers the first in-depth, comprehensive assessment of CETA, covering many of its most important elements and exploring its obstacles, accomplishments, and early effects. Based on the European Commission-funded Erasmus+ Jean Monnet Project on CETA Implementation and Implications, which linked scholars and stakeholders across Europe and North America to analyze and evaluate the implementation and impacts of the agreement, this book covers regulation, procurement, the environment, the innovative investment disputes system, labour mobility and labour relations, bilateral governance instruments, and the implications for EU trade policy of CETA’s contested ratification. Uniquely interdisciplinary and featuring contributors from around the world, CETA Implementation and Implications provides a nuanced and balanced assessment of this landmark trade agreement and its effects on regional and global trade in turbulent times.

While civil society and social movements claim for more effective measures to cope with anthropogenic climate change, legal scholars are witnessing the “aurora” of climate change law. What is quite relevant in this double-process of recognition/establishment is the interdisciplinary nature of such a field of studies, which goes beyond formalistic legal aspects. Based on the need to rethink legal paradigms, “Climate Constitutionalism Momentum: Adaptive Legal Systems” deals with three major means to combat anthropogenic climate change—namely science, politics and law—further addressing the thesis regarding a supposed adaptiveness of legal systems and proposing new pathways for further inquiries on the current climate constitutionalism momentum. The book introduces the international efforts in acknowledging the need for concrete measures to achieve ambitious results, addressing the comparative public law debate, merging theoretical appraisals and quantitative insights under a top-down approach and a civil-law methodology. Furthermore, the book combines theoretical and empirical viewpoints in reference to climate justice and litigation. The last part of the argumentative pattern merges the aforementioned key elements and grounds of investigation, providing an overall account of the current climate constitutionalism momentum. Academic researchers are the book’s primary audience, but it is also targeted for undergraduate and postgraduate students of specific courses. For the numerous insights and the contemporary relevance of the topic, the book is also addressed to political stakeholders and legal practitioners. Given the transnational development of this area of law, the expected audience of the book is global.

Presents the first comprehensive reflection on the nature of environmental law scholarship from the perspectives of leading scholars in the field.