Facing mass extinction, it is prudent to decolonise lands & laws

A philosophical essay on respecting jurisdiction

Bibliographic Data

ID14970903
AuthorsJeremy Bendik-Keymer (0000-0002-3224-1090, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH, USA, corresponding author)
Year2020
Volume29
Issue4
Pages561-584
Publication date2020-10-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueGriffith Law Review (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1038-3441 • E-ISSN: 1839-4205
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/10383441.2020.1878595
OpenAlexW3153350488
LanguageEN
Citations received4
References cited38

The drivers of mass extinction today are societal processes (including economic and legal systems) inherited from European imperialism and embedded in the international state system. Their path dependencies demand that we engage in decolonial work. This work centrally involves countering land abstraction – the rendering instrumental of lands, waters, and skies for the sake of national territory, capitalist profit, or industrial resource use. Much Indigenous law is centred on moral relations with lands, internalising ‘ecological reflexivity’ within Indigenous society in highly articulated ways not present in the social memory of nation states. Prudential reasons thus support decolonising Indigenous lands, making room for the sovereignty and jurisdiction of Indigenous law. Such reasons are not exclusive but rather add to already evident reasons of justice in support of Indigenous decolonisation which have for some time been urgent calls for concern. This paper provides new reasoning for decolonisation concerning the practical relations between the disestablishment of our inherited colonial order and the curtailment of now alarming rates of extinction threatening the current order of life on this Earth

Jurisdiction · Law and economics · Political science · Sociology · Climate Change and Geoengineering · Environmental law and policy · Law · Political Philosophy and Ethics

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