Metaphors of Justice: A Cognitive-Semiotic Mapping of Judicial Reasoning in Environmental Adjudication
摘要
In the halls of climate justice, words are more than mere descriptions; they are the unseen architects of the law’s response to a warming planet. This paper uncovers a “metaphorical triad”- Balance, Burden, and Equilibrium, that acts as a cognitive prison for judicial reasoning. While ‘Balance’ transforms fundamental rights into negotiable economic trade-offs, ‘Burden’ turns systemic climate failures into insurmountable evidentiary weights that crush a plaintiff’s standing. Meanwhile, the ‘Equilibrium’ metaphor clings to a static, self-correcting image of nature that is blind to the non-linear chaos of modern tipping points. Yet, a different story emerges from the Global South. By wielding the metaphor of Stewardship, courts in jurisdictions like Pakistan and Bangladesh have bypassed these scales of inertia. They frame the environment as a sacred trust, enabling transformative remedies that protect the future rather than just the status quo. This research challenges judges to stop being mere custodians of inherited language and instead become the architects of a new, reflexive legal vocabulary.