Jonathan, thank you so much for this. I have been a solicitor for 30 years, and for the last half of that time have increasingly been focused on trying to find ways to use the law for good. I have done this to some extent by managing to work for Bates Wells, the first UK law firm to be a B Corp (and Perspectiva’s lawyers). However, as the climate and other crises have become more pronounced, I have sought to go further and look more deeply at how the profession as a whole might respond to the situation we are in. I have been trying to articulate it here (https://theuncertainsolicitor.substack.com/p/embracing-the-cracks?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=364535&post_id=142670599&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=eord6&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email ), and it almost feels like this post of yours follows in some ways naturally on from the last of mine a couple of weeks back.
I am certainly sending it to all and sundry, urging them not just to read it but to engage with it more deeply. Whilst I know your work ranges far and wide, I will keep exploring this particular theme for a while yet – and may come back to aspects of your article here as a reference point as I do so.
My fear, and part of yours I suspect, is that climate policies designed "to protect rights" almost exclusively are meant for human life. Forcing an accelerated shift to renewable energy through legal and political means is and will have the effect of making other-than-human life pay further and dearly for our civilization's malfeasance. Focus should be on the living world, and not on a single species (us) out of some 10 million. https://scaledown.substack.com/p/two-compelling-reasons-to-end-human
Thank you for this. In the light of Unger's comment that law 'was already present in society itself' and your own questionning of 'over-reliance' on law, I wis to draw attention to a recent publication from Aboriginal scholars and teachers in Australia which explores the contrasts between formal law and traditional aboriginal law and “The Land is the Source of the Law”. They write
"The central concern of relations between the two different laws in Australia – the Aboriginal
traditional law of great age and the Western positivist law with its postulates rejecting morality in
law, is the question of how to bring together such different societies and legal systems, with such
different world views.
Aboriginal societies, with custodial ethics, ecological stewardship and Laws of Obligation, are built
on a relationalist rather than a survivalist ethos. The monumentality of Aboriginal law resides not
only in the old saying “The Land is the Source of the Law”17, and in its integrity, gravity and authentic
majesty, but in its moral foundation all without the contradictions inherent in Western law."
Poelina, A., Bagnall, D., Graham, M., Williams, R. T., Yunkaporta, T., Marshall, C., . . . Davis, M. (2024). Declaration of Peace for Indigenous Australians and Nature: A Legal Pluralist Approach to First Laws and Earth Laws. Singapore: Springer Verlag.
"Oh Justice, if in the vastness of these great cycles there is one who is listening, I ask you to lead us to better days, lead us to better days...Oh Justice, lead us to better days...Lead us to the sunflower fields of late summer, the pomegranate, red and ripening...Lead us to better days." - Josh Schrei of the Emerald Podcast, episode "Oh Justice" (https://open.spotify.com/episode/0tuFU7vyDcupGQMd5I2G1b?si=m-6PXx6PSZGJ8fJEOzqdbA)
May we all understand that we are in this 'cause and effect' together.
Are laws and rights static, or do they evolve? It's encouraging when courts take the evolutionary view (especially in contrast to the corrupt high court in the US at present, which would have our Constitution forever frozen in its conception). Lee Smolin, in the epilogue to his book, Time Reborn, argues that surviving the climate crisis requires a shift from the West's long-standing bias towards a bifurcated view of reality in which the supposedly timeless is privileged. He traces this back to the Greeks, and the ancient belief in a perfect heavenly sphere beyond all change, contrasted to an Earthly realm in which time should best be taken as an illusion. This claim persists through Newton's view of space as fundamental, through to Einstein's timeless block universe.
Smolin urges us to embrace what he calls "the principles of an open future ... a new, pluralistic stage of the Enlightenment," as the critical step towards recognizing the essential, fundamental reality of time, wherein it is space, not time, which is the emergent, and evolution is at the heart even of natural laws -- and deserves to be fully embraced as we advance our own laws and institutions, as is necessary if our societies are to meet our stark challenge.
It's a fine thing to see courts make these timely rulings.
Jonathan, thank you so much for this. I have been a solicitor for 30 years, and for the last half of that time have increasingly been focused on trying to find ways to use the law for good. I have done this to some extent by managing to work for Bates Wells, the first UK law firm to be a B Corp (and Perspectiva’s lawyers). However, as the climate and other crises have become more pronounced, I have sought to go further and look more deeply at how the profession as a whole might respond to the situation we are in. I have been trying to articulate it here (https://theuncertainsolicitor.substack.com/p/embracing-the-cracks?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=364535&post_id=142670599&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=eord6&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email ), and it almost feels like this post of yours follows in some ways naturally on from the last of mine a couple of weeks back.
I am certainly sending it to all and sundry, urging them not just to read it but to engage with it more deeply. Whilst I know your work ranges far and wide, I will keep exploring this particular theme for a while yet – and may come back to aspects of your article here as a reference point as I do so.
Many thanks for articulating it so clearly.
My fear, and part of yours I suspect, is that climate policies designed "to protect rights" almost exclusively are meant for human life. Forcing an accelerated shift to renewable energy through legal and political means is and will have the effect of making other-than-human life pay further and dearly for our civilization's malfeasance. Focus should be on the living world, and not on a single species (us) out of some 10 million. https://scaledown.substack.com/p/two-compelling-reasons-to-end-human
Thank you for this. In the light of Unger's comment that law 'was already present in society itself' and your own questionning of 'over-reliance' on law, I wis to draw attention to a recent publication from Aboriginal scholars and teachers in Australia which explores the contrasts between formal law and traditional aboriginal law and “The Land is the Source of the Law”. They write
"The central concern of relations between the two different laws in Australia – the Aboriginal
traditional law of great age and the Western positivist law with its postulates rejecting morality in
law, is the question of how to bring together such different societies and legal systems, with such
different world views.
Aboriginal societies, with custodial ethics, ecological stewardship and Laws of Obligation, are built
on a relationalist rather than a survivalist ethos. The monumentality of Aboriginal law resides not
only in the old saying “The Land is the Source of the Law”17, and in its integrity, gravity and authentic
majesty, but in its moral foundation all without the contradictions inherent in Western law."
Poelina, A., Bagnall, D., Graham, M., Williams, R. T., Yunkaporta, T., Marshall, C., . . . Davis, M. (2024). Declaration of Peace for Indigenous Australians and Nature: A Legal Pluralist Approach to First Laws and Earth Laws. Singapore: Springer Verlag.
"Oh Justice, if in the vastness of these great cycles there is one who is listening, I ask you to lead us to better days, lead us to better days...Oh Justice, lead us to better days...Lead us to the sunflower fields of late summer, the pomegranate, red and ripening...Lead us to better days." - Josh Schrei of the Emerald Podcast, episode "Oh Justice" (https://open.spotify.com/episode/0tuFU7vyDcupGQMd5I2G1b?si=m-6PXx6PSZGJ8fJEOzqdbA)
May we all understand that we are in this 'cause and effect' together.
Are laws and rights static, or do they evolve? It's encouraging when courts take the evolutionary view (especially in contrast to the corrupt high court in the US at present, which would have our Constitution forever frozen in its conception). Lee Smolin, in the epilogue to his book, Time Reborn, argues that surviving the climate crisis requires a shift from the West's long-standing bias towards a bifurcated view of reality in which the supposedly timeless is privileged. He traces this back to the Greeks, and the ancient belief in a perfect heavenly sphere beyond all change, contrasted to an Earthly realm in which time should best be taken as an illusion. This claim persists through Newton's view of space as fundamental, through to Einstein's timeless block universe.
Smolin urges us to embrace what he calls "the principles of an open future ... a new, pluralistic stage of the Enlightenment," as the critical step towards recognizing the essential, fundamental reality of time, wherein it is space, not time, which is the emergent, and evolution is at the heart even of natural laws -- and deserves to be fully embraced as we advance our own laws and institutions, as is necessary if our societies are to meet our stark challenge.
It's a fine thing to see courts make these timely rulings.