Building Solidarity: Intricacies Between People, Nature & Law
By Anna Maddrick
To conceive a ‘Legal Pact for the Future’ - an express declaration of the laws that humanity intends to govern them, on earth and in outer space - implies relationships: between people and nature, people and law and law and nature. The relationship between people and nature is self-evident - human existence starts and ends with nature in an inextricable and mutually dependent relationship. It is appropriate therefore that legal standards reflect this obvious fact with comprehensive and robust protections that recognise this interconnected nature to human and environmental rights. The recently admitted right to a healthy environment by the United Nations General Assembly is central in this regard.
As for the relationship between people and law, we can turn to the social contract theory. As the social contract theory espouses, law is humanity’s agreement to live together. The social contract theory thus defines a relationship. Just as with relationships in the every day, legal relationships should be rooted in values of empathy and the interests of the parties to it. Humankind undoubtedly has an interest in its effective legal protection. However, law as a discipline also has a significant interest in its own effective operation, and therefore an interest in the protection of the individuals and resources that it exists to serve.
On the one hand, if law’s role is to uphold the interests of those it governs, it undoubtedly has an interest in preventing, so far as it can, actions and omissions which threaten the overall balance of interests that the disciplines exists to regulate. By example, human rights violations rarely occur in isolation and rather as part of a spectrum of poor enforcement of legal norms. The human and environmental rights violations invoked by armed conflict is one clear example, where aggravating circumstances affect not only substantive human and environmental rights but also procedural: such as by the disruption of ordinary legal proceedings and a block of access to justice. Consequently, lack of enforcement of the most fundamental human and environmental rights lends to vulnerability of the whole legal system. That built on top can’t stand with conviction if the base is broken.
On the other hand, people also have a reciprocal interest in ensuring that law is being upheld. Human and environmental rights are nothing but words on paper without their effective enforcement, and thus while human and environmental rights exist as singular entities, their existence hinges upon something more important: a right to law itself. Without an express focus on judicial enforcement - the fora that brings international rights to life - as well as the complexity of the relationships that ensure such enforcement, realisation of rights will necessarily be lacking.
Arguably, the social contract relationship between people and law is broken. The enduring and systematic violation of human rights is widespread and of grave international concern, calling into question the legitimacy of international institutions and tribunals, with concerning implications for the international order. It is suggested here that part of the reason the social contract theory may be considered “broken” is due to an absence from its very inception: an articulation of the relationships between people and nature and between law and nature. The social contract theory was promulgated against a backdrop of newly crystallising capitalistic thinking that promoted profit over protections, progress over precaution. Consequently, nature was considered an infinite site of accumulation for capital, and nature’s role in upholding legal and human relationships was neglected.
Nature, as the giver and taker of all rights, must occupy a central role in any new articulation of humanity’s international legal paradigm. Not only is the protection of nature essential to the realisation of human rights, but also to the protection of law itself. Environmental damage lies at the heart of numerous international crises, affecting climate change, migration and conflict as key examples with consequent weight for the remits of international justice. In the face of numerous international crises, it is therefore essential to propose clear and enforceable legal standards that can deter the worst behaviour and provide access to justice with effective enforceability that can reflect the complexity and dynamism of human and nature relationships. It is fundamental that such standards articulate and apply a reciprocal relationship, which ensures a respect of the law and that which the law exists to govern: people and nature.
The Legal Pact for the Future hopes to embody these ideas by providing a collaborative platform for people, NGOs, businesses and governments to devise actionable legal solutions for protecting people and nature. Unlike the original conceptions of the social contract theory, which focused solely on humans, any new articulation of humanity’s agreement to live together must reflect an updated contemporary understanding of the role of nature. Protection of people depends on nature, and the protection of nature depends on people. The protection of people and nature depends on the protection of law.
