Rights of nature, human species identity, and political thought in the anthropocene

Abstract

While much has been written about the efforts in multiple jurisdictions to recognize nature and natural features as rightsholders, there has been relatively little research into the relationship of these Rights of Nature developments to the Anthropocene. This article uses historian Dipesh Chakrabarty’s argument for the adoption of a human species identity in the Anthropocene as a jumping off point to analyze how legal rights for nature, such as those enacted in the Ecuador and New Zealand, can help address what Chakrabarty identifies as the challenges the Anthropocene presents to contemporary political thought. These pressing challenges include how to politicize relations between humans and non-humans, extend justice and the sphere of human morality to non-humans, cope with human limitations on our abilities to represent non-humans, and to initiate a withdrawal from a human-dominated world that is a common though uneven legacy of imperialism, capitalism, and globalization. The article argues that by providing responses to these challenges, Rights of Nature laws may also further the development of a human species identity. However, it also qualifies this conclusion in several important regards. First, the more expansive of these protections, embracing all of nature within political boundaries and relying on a remedial approach to justice and broad notions of representation in fact may hinder the adoption of the kind of species identity for which Chakrabarty has called. Second, as a cosmopolitan identity, this identity may be inhibited by continued circumscription of Rights of Nature by notions of state sovereignty.

Beyond “Geological Nature,” Fatalistic Determinism and Pop‐Anthropocene: Social, Cultural, and Political Aspects of the Anthropocene

“…These mechanisms are applied despite the transnational challenges of climate policy and the Anthropocene. However, it is not only about developing transnational climate policy, but also about politicizing relations between humans and non-humans, extending justice and the sphere of human morality to non-humans, and initiating a withdrawal from a human-dominated world that is the legacy and consequence of capitalist logic (Epstein, 2023). This would require a radical change in social relations and human/non-human relations from constant competition and the desire to colonize to mutual cooperation and care work that is frequently invisible or devalued (Corwin & Gidwani, 2024).…”

The rights of nature and the human right to nature: an overview of the European legal system and challenges for the ecological transition

“…This Earth-centred view is anchored in the term proposed by Berry (1999) as "Earth Jurisprudence" whose rationale is rooted in the philosophy of "Deep Ecology" in which all living beings have a moral and ethical claim regardless of their utility to humanity (Devall, 1980). Other authors have proposed other associated ideas, such as the critical zone science in the Anthropocene (Minor et al, 2020), or the "Critical Zones of the Anthropocene" (Seixas et al, 2021), and which aim to give visibility to different facets of the Anthropocene (Epstein, 2022), from the Paradigm of Human Exceptionalism and coloniality over Nature-extractivist (Catton and Dunlap, 1980) to the New Ecological Paradigm (Catton and Dunlap, 1980), and conviviality with Nature-Buen Vivir (Gudynas, 2015). Despite different ideas and concepts, all have in common the need to deal with a new epoch where humans have replaced Nature as the dominant force on the planet.…”