Year: 2026
Type: book-chapter
Abstract: This chapter examines how legal scholarship has employed the Anthropocene concept to diagnose structural weaknesses in existing legal systems and to outline potential pathways for reform. It first considers law’s historical role in enabling the economic growth and resource use that have contributed to humanity’s entry into the Anthropocene. It then surveys emerging scholarly debates and reform proposals in environmental and natural-resource law. These include revising foundational legal doctrines, reinterpreting or introducing new guiding principles, reforming constitutions, and strengthening polycentric regulatory approaches. The article also identifies five overarching challenges for law in the Anthropocene: a growing loss of orientation and increasing doubts about the prevailing anthropocentric paradigm; the need to curb resource overuse; shrinking civil liberties; fragmented regulatory authority; and the difficulty of adapting legal frameworks to an increasingly dynamic Earth system. It concludes that environmental law must move beyond merely mitigating harm and instead begin to support the societal transformation required to ensure long-term Earth-system stability.
Source: Springer eBooks
Author: Till Markus
Institution: Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research
Language: English
Topic: Environmental law and policy
Subfield: Law
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
OpenAlex ID: W7214469236