Ecological Jurisprudence

This open access book explores the rise of ecological jurisprudence, a new and transformative legal theory that challenges many traditional legal boundaries. Building on over a decade and a half of the author's research, teaching, and discussions, the book offers a thorough theoretical examination of this emerging theoretical trajectory, covering the field of ecological jurisprudence in its entirety.

Over the past decade, eco-jurisprudential initiatives have rapidly increased worldwide. Various jurisdictions, including Ecuador, New Zealand, India, and Colombia, have granted legal rights to natural entities like rivers, forests and salt water lagoons. The concept of Ecocide has gained international attention, and new approaches to environmental law are reshaping how humans relate to the natural world. Academic interest has also surged, with ever more peer-reviewed articles being published in this and cognate fields each year. All these diverse initiatives point to the emergence of an ecological jurisprudence, not only as a profound transformation of legal norms, but as a radical reimagination of law itself. Over eight chapters designed to guide the reader through a wide range of historical and theoretical contexts, the author dives deep into the implications of this shift.

Covering a breadth of topics never before brought together with such clear and wide-ranging scope, this book aims to provide a solid theoretical foundation for understanding the transformative potential of ecological jurisprudence.

Along with Stone's Do Trees Have Standing? (1972), Cullinan's Wild Law (2002), and the Ecuadorian Constitution (2008), we can now name Pelizzon's Ecological Jurisprudence as a key milestone in the field. (Herman F. Greene, JD, DMin, Thomas Berry Scholar-in-Residence, The Earth Law Center)

An immense gift to the field and to generations of lawyers to come, Ecological Jurisprudence contains teachings from which one could learn for a lifetime. (Katarina Hovden, University of Copenhagen)

Alessandro Pelizzon's Ecological Jurisprudence is deeply-rooted in how the law can best serve the natural world, inspiring future lawyers with the kind of jurisprudence the natural world so urgently needs to exist. (Maria Mercedes Sánchez, Former Coordinator of the United Nations Harmony with Nature Programme)

Pelizzon coins the term 'ecological jurisprudence' and mobilises it to create deep normative foundations for future environmental law developments. Any serious environmental scholar will have to engage with him because of the breadth and depth of what he achieves in this book. (Professor Afshin Akhtar-Khavari, QUT)