The Routledge Handbook of Law and the Anthropocene

by Peter D Burdon (Editor), James Martel (editor)

The Routledge Handbook of Law and the Anthropocene provides a critical survey into the function of law and governance during a time period when humans have 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 21st 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 the 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.

386 pages, Paperback

Published January 30, 2025