Earth Jurisprudence, Wild Law, Emergent Law: The Emerging Field of Ecology and Law—Part 1

Abstract

The article does two things. First, it explores the emerging field of ecology and law through the examination of Earth Jurisprudence developed in the work of Berry, Cullinan, and Burdon. Second, it puts this Earth Jurisprudence and the emerging field of ecology and law in connection with the wide ranging philosophical work of Deleuze and Guattari. Earth Jurisprudence and the emerging field of ecology and law are introduced through the exploration of four themes that characterise the field of study: a critique of the dominant western worldview and image of thought; a new philosophy of nature widely informed by contemporary science and cosmology; a new relation to the Earth and nature in affectual intensities, image of thinking, and investment of the social field; and, the realisation of the necessity and centrality of a fundamental reconceptualization of legality and governance. The Earth Jurisprudence of Berry, Cullinan, and Burdon (particularly Cullinan’s Wild Law: A Manifesto for Earth Justice) is then explored substantively in Cullinan’s reconceptualization of legality, the Grand Jurisprudence that informs Earth Jurisprudence, the Earth Jurisprudence of the promotion of mutual ecocentric human-Earth enhancement, the development of Earth rights, the reconceptualization of property and land, and the Wild Law that Earth Jurisprudence produces as the outcome of its creativity. Earth Jurisprudence and the emerging field of ecology and law are a far-reaching development within legal studies, with potentially profound implications for our contemporary conceptualisation of legality and governance and the creation of a concept of law for a new Earth. When put into connection with the wide ranging philosophical joint work of Deleuze and Guattari there emerge striking commonalities, convergences, and a common jurisprudential project of the creation of a legality for a new Earth. The article concludes with the argument that the work of Deleuze and Guattari could provide a key resource for the development of Earth Jurisprudence and the emerging field of ecology and law, particularly the Deleuze and Guattari jurisprudential concept of emergent law.