Taking the Ecological Transition Seriously: The Need for Changes in Law and Institutions

To address the ecological crisis, law, like other disciplines, is undergoing radical changes and reinventing itself. Given that ecological issues transcend all boundaries, international relations, international law and its institutions, as well as national legal systems need to be thoroughly rethought to ensure that the protection of the planet and the challenges of social and ecological transition are adequately addressed. This chapter argues that law can take advantage of this crisis to initiate a process of renewal. In particular, by highlighting the adaptations and mutations of a number of classical legal categories, four non-exhaustive proposals are examined with a view to triggering the much-needed shift in the legal paradigm. This chapter serves as a sort of “compass of possibilities,” examining the desirable transformations of state sovereignty, the necessary reinterpretation of individual and collective rights and freedoms in the context of an ecological emergency—and especially the right to property, the inevitable and gradual accountability of systematic actors, and finally the need to reconcile nature with effective normative frameworks.