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Despite its noble intentions and some victories, environmental law has been and continues to be complicit in driving the processes and paradigms that give rise to the Anthropocene. Environmental law is also unable to respond to the regulatory challenges that arise from the Anthropocene’s complex Earth system. We need a new legal paradigm that is better fit for purpose in the Anthropocene called Earth system law. A key reason for environmental law’s failures and an obstacle preventing its transformation, is its reluctance to embrace and respond to the notion of the Earth system. My hypothesis is that the Earth system metaphor should be key in rethinking environmental law with the ultimate view to constructing Earth system law for the Anthropocene. The primary purpose of this paper is to explore what the Earth system metaphor entails and what it might imply for environmental law’s transformation to Earth system law.

The need to address climate and environmental change becomes ever more urgent as climate harms and ecological destruction intensify and become more frequent. The articles in this issue emerged from a workshop in 2019, and they explore the multi-faceted nature of climate justice against the backdrop of the Anthropocene trope. The articles address specific issues such as corporate responsibility, the plight of farmers in India, climate displacement, and gender justice. In doing so, they reveal common themes such as the limitations and failings of business as usual and law as usual, the centrality of human rights and vulnerability theory in the pursuit of climate justice, the indivisibility of justice, and alternatives ways of achieving it.

Despite important victories, human rights have been unable to respond effectively to the many deeply intertwined socio-ecological injustices in the Anthropocene. In particular, human rights have failed to practically address, in a meaningful way, the plights of billions of oppressed human beings (and failed to address the vulnerability of non-human beings), while conceptually human rights are proving to be ill-suited for the epistemic demands of the Anthropocene. As a trope, the Anthropocene presents an opportunity to re-interrogate the role of human rights as key mechanisms in the state's regulatory mix to address socio-ecological injustices arising within the context of a vulnerable Earth system. This article reflects upon whether a re-interrogation could be accomplished by utilizing vulnerability theory, which is an alternative approach to ethical evaluation. As a heuristic, vulnerability has the potential to inform an ontological change of stance away from a human-centred, neoliberal, and impregnably Western understanding of human rights, towards an altogether more porous and contingent understanding of the vulnerability of the entire living order as a starting point from which to critique the epistemological closures and regulatory challenges confronting the human rights paradigm in the Anthropocene.

Environmental law in South Africa has developed in a rapid fashion since the inception of the new constitutional dispensation in 1994. This development is evident from, inter alia, the constitutionalisation of the environmental right in section 24 of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 1996. Section 24 contains amongst other provisions, directive principles that impose duties on government to protect the environment for present and future generations through reasonable legislative and other measures. It is apparent from section 24 that these measures should ensure environmental governance practices that are aimed at the achievement of sustainable results. The South African environmental governance regime is, however, characterised by fragmentation that may negate the achievement of sustainable environmental governance. It is argued in this article that, for environmental governance to become sustainable, it is necessary to integrate environmental governance efforts, possibly by way of a holistic approach to environmental governance. In light of the above, this article: investigates the nature and extent of fragmentation; explores reasons for fragmentation; discusses disadvantages of fragmented governance efforts in South Africa; investigates the concept of integration and holistic governance as means to achieve sustainable environmental governance results; and makes recommendations regarding the eventual achievement of integrated, holistic and sustainable environmental governance.

Today, numerous constitutions provide for a rights-based approach to environmental protection. Based as they are on an instrumentalist rationality that seeks to promote human entitlements to nature, the majority of these rights remain anthropocentric. Although there are growing calls within academic and activist circles to reorient rights alongside an ecocentric ontology, only one country to date has taken the bold step to bestow rights on nature in its constitution. The Ecuadorian Constitution of 2008 announces the transition from a juridical anthropocentric orientation to an ecocentric position by recognizing enforceable rights of nature. This article critically reflects on the legal significance of granting rights to nature, with specific reference to Ecuador’s constitutional experiment. It first provides a contextual description of rights in an attempt to illustrate their anthropogenic genesis, and then explores the notion of environmental rights. The following part traces the discourse that has developed over the years in relation to the rights of nature by revealing aspects of an ecocentric counter-narrative. The final part focuses specifically on the Ecuadorian constitutional regime and provides (i) a historical-contextual discussion of the events that led to the adoption of the rights of nature; (ii) an analysis of the constitutional provisions directly and indirectly related to the rights of nature; and (iii) a critical appraisal of whether those provisions, so far, measure up to the rhetoric of constitutional ecocentric rights of nature in that country.

Scientists suggest we are entering a new geological epoch called the Anthropocene. It is an epoch that signals an altogether more unpredictable and unstable period in Earth’s geological history compared to the state of relative Earth system stability, resilience and harmony that have hitherto prevailed in the Holocene. The Anthropocene’s imagery reveals the socio-ecological impacts occasioned by the ever-expanding project of human development the world over, including humans’ ability to change biogeochemical cycles; unprecedented species loss and species extinction; appropriation of non-human resources for exclusive human use; wide-spread land use conversion; alteration of evolutionary processes and outcomes; and changing the climate through the release of massive amounts of carbon into the atmosphere.

In this chapter we reflect on the role of human rights as part of the juridical toolbox to mediate the human-environment interface in the Global South. Our point of departure is that socio-ecological impacts disproportionally affect the livelihoods of those least resilient to withstand or adapt to these impacts, in particular people living in the Global South. It is within this context of deepening global injustice that human rights emerge, as they have in the past, as a central component of the juridical framework necessary to address the myriad socio-economic and ecological injustices that arise in the Anthropocene. It is our central thesis that human rights will continue to play an important role as part of the constitutional and broader legal interventions that are needed to determine and ultimately ensure socio-ecological security and justice in the Anthropocene, especially for those living in the Global South.

This chapter presents a cartography of environmental human rights, with particular emphasis on the current and potential contribution of human rights in augmenting global environmental protection and justice. It first provides a short account of the relationship between human rights and the environment, including the increased popularity of human rights as environmental protection measures, and explains the reasons the convergence between them. It then considers the historical milestones in the development of environmental human rights, along with the different manifestations of the rights-based approach (substantive political environmental rights, socio-economic environmental rights, procedural environmental rights, substantive right to a healthy environment, and rights of nature). Specific examples in international, regional, and domestic law where these forms of the rights-based approach occur are given. The chapter concludes with a discussion of three overarching criticisms of environmental human rights, one of which asserts that rights-based approaches have been ineffective in securing human rights.

In this chapter, we investigate African regional human rights law, with specific reference to the environmental right in the African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights, 1981 (ACHPR) and corresponding jurisprudence that might reveal the manifestation of standards related to a) the environment envisaged in this right, and b) the manner in which this right must be respected, protected, promoted and fulfilled. Where appropriate, we also refer to domestic environment-related rights provisions in some African countries in order to contextualise the analysis of African regional law and to illustrate, briefly, how its plays out at the domestic level.

Law has failed to address the ever-deepening socio-ecological crisis of the Anthropocene. In the light of, and as a response to, law’s failures in this respect, this paper argues in support of developing a new legal paradigm for the Anthropocene epoch called Earth system law. It does so first by briefly describing the Anthropocene trope and the extent and dimensions of its socio-ecological crisis. The paper then specifically focuses on international environmental law as an example of how and why law has become incapable of, and inappropriate for, addressing this crisis, and for being unable to respond to the Anthropocene’s regulatory demands. By drawing on three Earth system-related regulatory implications of the Anthropocene trope (i.e., inclusivity, interdependencies and complexity), the final part of the paper makes out a case in support of reforming law and creating a new Earth system oriented legal paradigm that is fit for purpose in the Anthropocene epoch.

International environmental law (IEL) has been unable to respond effectively to the Anthropocene’s global socio-ecological crisis, which is critically existential and requires radical interventions and regulatory reform. This article explores the potential of the recent United Nations (UN)-backed initiative to adopt a Global Pact for the Environment as an opportunity to reform IEL. It does so by (i) reflecting on the Anthropocene’s demands for a constitutionalized form of IEL through the lens of global environmental constitutionalism; (ii) investigating the extent to which the Global Pact could contribute to such a vision; and (iii) suggesting ways in which to strengthen the constitutional potential of the Global Pact in this endeavour. To this end, the article revisits the World Charter for Nature of 1982, which seems to have slipped off the radar in academic as well as policy circles. A case is made for renewed support of the Charter – which already enjoys the backing of the majority of UN General Assembly member states, and which has constitutional qualities – to serve as a ‘best-practice’ example during the ensuing negotiation of the Global Pact.

In this article we explore the extent to which the South African mining industry can contribute to realising positive obligations stemming from socio-economic rights, and in particular, the right of access to water. Our hypothesis is that government, as the primary addressee of socio-economic rights obligations, is unable fully and on its own to realise the right of access to water in South Africa. Because of the ecological impact of mines on water resources and resultant socio-economic externalities that are passed on to society, we argue that mines must contribute to the South African transformative constitutional agenda by realising, albeit in a limited way, positive obligations related to the right of access to water. Our analysis is situated at the interface of three conceptual frameworks within which we theoretically embed the inquiry: the movement from government to governance and the involvement of non-state actors in governance tasks, corporate social responsibility, and human rights obligations ...

Human rights are considered ethical demands that operate at an elevated juridical level. They have become popular legal constructs that contribute to the traditional instrumentalist and the more esoteric functions of law. While there is often considerable criticism leveled against human rights, as creatures of law and as legal mechanisms possessing unique characteristics, they are also uniquely situated and able to perform a singular mediating role in the human–environment interface. The recent mushrooming of rights to a healthy environment, environmental-related procedural rights and other substantive political and socio-economic rights bearing on environmental interests, is testimony to their increasing popularity. Yet, despite their prevalence in the environmental regulatory domain, the arrival of the Anthropocene is possibly set to require a complete rethink of the way in which we use human rights to mediate the human–environment interface. This is because the Anthropocene presents an urgent call for dramatic regulatory interventions of a kind hitherto unseen. Accepting the continuing prevalence of human rights as part of the environmental regulatory domain, this article argues that there is every reason to believe that their traditional role, nature, objectives and construction should change because of the Anthropocene. The article carries this argument by discussing the Anthropocene and its features that might influence conceptions of human rights and the environment as they are currently embedded in the social institutions of environmental law and governance. The argument then uses climate change as a useful explanatory context to identify and to understand the different types of rights issues that might arise in the Anthropocene. The next part of the discussion then takes stock of human rights in the environmental context by evaluating the way in which they currently mediate the human–environment interface. The article concludes with suggestions founding a re-imagination of the relationship between human rights and the environment in the Anthropocene.

It has been informally suggested that we have entered a new geological epoch called the ‘Anthropocene’. With its formal acceptance pending, acting as a cognitive framework for understanding and describing global environmental change, the Anthropocene provides an opportunity for us to re-imagine our global socio-juridical institutions that must better respond to the exigencies of this possible new epoch. In this article I describe what type of global constitutional reforms could emerge from the Anthropocene’s constitutional moment, when considered through the environmental constitutionalism lens. The article commences with a discussion that traces the minimal definitional content of the anthropocentrism-dominant narrative underlying the Anthropocene discourse. As it does so, a case is made out in support of reforms of our social-institutional arrangements in the regulatory domain. The article then provides a conceptual analysis of environmental constitutionalism, including a discussion of the thin (or formal-descriptive) and thick (higher order, substantively constitutional) characteristics of environmental constitutionalism. The discussion then focuses on the theory of constitutional moments in general terms, while the final part concludes the analysis with suggestions on what the constitutional moment of the Anthropocene could look like in terms of the thick and thin metaphor of environmental constitutionalism.

This chapter investigates the existence of environmental jus cogens norms and the possibility of extending peremptory norms into the environmental domain. For this purpose, the chapter briefly describes the trite manifestation and use of jus cogens in international law. It then surveys the current doctrinal state of the art to determine to what extent it could be said that certain norms may or may not have attained the status of jus cogens in the international environmental law (IEL) domain. The latter analysis is then extended to present the reasons for and possible obstacles currently countering, from a theoretical and practical point of view, the adoption of environmental jus cogens norms. The final part of the chapter follows a re-imaginary approach to determine which IEL norms could in future qualify for jus cogens status through the lens of the informally proposed Anthropocene geological epoch.

The 1996 Constitution of the Republic of South Africa explicitly provides for a comprehensive environmental right. The environmental right is part of the supreme law of the country and the entire environmental law regime. South Africa also has a vigilant judiciary, which has had various opportunities to interpret and give meaning to the environmental right. This article explores the manner in which the environmental right has been interpreted, translated and applied by the judiciary over the past 10 years. The article briefly analyses the environmental right, investigates recent judgments that reflected on the right, and concludes with a critical survey and suggestions as to future developments in this regard.

This study brings the debate upon environmental protection in the Republic of South Africa since the 1996 Constitution enactment which conformed it as a justifiable human right. The contribution begins with some considerations about (in) the development of the environmental right. The more pertinent constitutional provisions related to the environment are discussed, and there are some remarks about future developments in this field.

The gradual rise of ‘environmental constitutionalism’ in scholarly debates suggests a deliberate, albeit (still) hesitant, attempt to view anew the human rights–environment debate through a constitutional lens. While this reignited interest seems to depart from a more environment-focused and tailor-made constitutional approach (i.e., environmental constitutionalism), one has to ask: is environmental constitutionalism merely a new label for an old phenomenon (i.e., constitutionalism); or does it actually bring something new to the table? More importantly: is this new scholarly term of art useful to the human rights–environment debate? In an effort to contribute to the young but evolving discourse on environmental constitutionalism, this Chapter seeks to commence a normative-conceptual enquiry focused on answering these questions.

Every book, in an important sense, ‘frames’ its subject area – not just between two covers but also – inevitably – within a set of epistemic choices or parameters. This book, in particular, is a Research Handbook on Human Rights and the Environment and such a title announces a particular aim. The title ‘research handbook’ implies a kind of authoritative overview – a certain degree of expert epistemic stability and validity. The term ‘frames’ the contribution of the book in a particular way: surely, a reader might think a ‘research handbook’ provides a relatively comprehensive and thoroughgoing initiation into a body of well-accepted, soundly constructed knowledge, covered by experts in its field. It might be comforting to think so – and certainly, many of the contributors to this handbook are world-leaders in the general field of ‘human rights’, and specifically, in the field of the deeply troubled, increasingly important legal nexus between ‘human rights’ and the ‘environment’ – yet matters are not nearly so stable as the term ‘handbook’ implies. For a start, even the term ‘human rights’ (so central to our subject matter) is fraught with ambiguities – as this handbook fully suggests.

Bringing together leading international scholars in the field, this Research Handbook interrogates, from various angles and positions, the fractious relationship between human rights and the environment and between human rights and environmental law. The Handbook provides researchers and students with a fertile source of reflection and engagement with this most important of contemporary legal relationships. Law’s complex role in the mediation of the relationship between humanity and the living order is richly reflected in this timely and authoritative collection.

South Africa is internationally renowned for its rich biodiversity heritage that comprises, amongst others, many endemic animals and birds, an abundance of marine biodiversity and a large diversity of flora populations.1 These biodiversity resources are however under continual threat of exploitation and extinction. Moreover, South Africa is in the process of social, developmental and economical reconstruction and upliftment. These considerations may place an additional burden on biodiversity resources if the developmental needs of society are not balanced harmoniously with the conservation needs of the environment in general, and biodiversity resources in particular.

In May 2018 the process which may ultimately lead to the negotiation of a legally binding Global Pact for the Environment formally commenced under the auspices of the United Nations General Assembly. Expectations for the Pact are high, evidenced in particular by its multiple and overlapping objectives: to serve as a generic binding instrument of international environmental law (IEL) principles ; to integrate, consolidate, unify and ultimately entrench many of the fragmented principles of IEL; and to constitute the first global environmental human rights instrument. In the wake of the impending intergovernmental process, the paper offers a thorough critique of the draft Pact in its present iteration. We do so with the aim of evaluating the strengths and weaknesses of the present draft Pact by interrogating: a) its diplomatic and symbolic relevance and possible unique contribution at the policy level to global environmental law and governance; and b) its potential at the operational level of IEL and global environmental governance, focusing on the extent to which the draft Pact accommodates both existing and more recent rules and principles for environmental protection. As the Pact’s primary ambition is to become a universally binding global treaty, it would be churlish not to recognise its potential for innovation, as well as the considerable opportunity that the negotiation of the Pact will have to generate broad-sweeping and positive impacts. However, our central thesis is that only if the Global Pact were to incorporate ambitious normative provisions to strengthen those public and private global governance efforts that aim to halt the deterioration of Earth system integrity, as well as to maintain and improve integrity, will it be able to offer a firm foundation of the type of Anthropocene Law, termed here as the Lex Anthropocenae, required to confront head-on the deep socio-ecological crisis of the Anthropocene.