An Unknown Past, an Unequal Present, and an Uncertain Future: Transnational Environmental Law Through Three Research Challenges

Abstract

The ecological overshoot of humanity requires us to both zoom into the details of intrahuman injustice-otherwise we do not see the suffering of many humans-and to zoom out of that history, or else we do not see the suffering of other species and, in a manner of speaking, of the planet. 1 Transnational law offers a particularly rich opportunity for zooming in and zooming out. While functioning as a methodology, a discourse and a field of substantive law, 2 transnational law brings particular dimensions, sites and processes of environmental law and lawmaking into view. Approaching transnational law as a vision field does not downgrade the role of its practitioners and scholars to the status of observers. Rather, transnational law encompasses a project of changing the world by changing dominant ideas about it. Transnational law has long been seen to function as a mechanism for illuminating particular spaces. Such spaces include the empty space left by existing doctrinal perspectives, 3 and the particular relationships between, around and outside national laws. 4 It offers a way of looking at and for law that is alert to spheres of normativity different from the nation state, or that involves distinct ways of conceiving of the nation state. It highlights private actors and the power and