Earth law is an emerginglegal framework that seeks to advance thelegal rights of theEarth ininternational law. Earth lawyers consider earth law to be a different form of legal practice fromenvironmental law on the basis ofecocentrism, rather thananthropocentrism. Earth law seeks to codify protections for the environment not just for human health or desires but for the earth itself. It includes all types of lawyering which establish rights or protections for the interest of nature, rather than the interest of humans.[1]
Earth law is guided by advocateThomas Berry's philosophy ofearth jurisprudence, which, according to theUnited Nations posits that "humans are only one part of a wider community of beings and that the welfare of each member of that community is dependent on the welfare of the Earth as a whole."[2]
Berry was inspired by Christopher Stone, a law professor at theUniversity of Southern California, who was one of the first to call for judicial reform on nature, with his 1974 book,Should Trees Have Standing? Towards Legal Rights for Natural Objects. The legal and jurisprudential theory of therights of nature, similar to the concept of fundamentalhuman rights presented in the book became a cornerstone of the earth law framework.[3]
In practice, one way practitioners attempt to work earth law into existing anthropocentric law is by establishingenvironmental personhood, in which a legal argument seeks to establish the Earth, or aspects of the Earth such as rivers, watersheds, mountains etc. as deserving of their own rights and therefore having the status of alegal person.[4]
Other law movements included in Earth law include nonhumananimal rights, definingecocide as a crime outside of the context of war, rights offuture generations,legal guardianship for nature, andIndigenous peoples legalities.[5]