Legal Fetishism in Times of Polycrisis

Abstract

Conclusion: Law is, and will ever be, a human (a societal) construct. As such, its instruments will always, tably, require human mediation. Given the seemly unstoppable acceleration of the ecological crisis, it is plausible that innovative proposals start to challenge the human-nature dualism enshrined in Law. Nevertheless, in doing so, some proposals risk fetishizing concepts, being merely performative without demonstrating real capacity to challenge the dualistic structure of the legal order. In fact, rights are a markedly humanistic juridical figure; therefore, transplanting them to non-human subjects generates a series of dogmatic problems, while reproducing the same individualistic worldview. The RoN are congenitally divisive and reductionist, forcing an unnatural enclosure of ecological systems in contained units and putting them in competition with other (human) rights. This is precisely what should be avoided if we take the present predicament seriously. The focus of an authentically transformative legal theory should not be to extend the legal realm to colonize nature. On the contrary, the focus should be on integrating ecological dynamics into the legal order. Instead of giving rights to nature, we should be attributing humans stringent obligations towards nature. If the goal is to affect human behavior, which is the source of the immense devastation unraveling, then the reasonable way forward is to act on human behavior. It is the Law that must “ecologize”, not the other way around