Special issue : Epistemic violence and environmental justice

[Abstract unavailable

Comparative environmental law and orientalism : reading beyond the 'text' of traditional knowledge protection

This article uses traditional knowledge as a case study to address multiple discussions in the field of comparative law. First, it addresses the theoretical challenge of the role of comparative law as a critical research tool in the development of environmental law. Second, within the context of transnational legal processes, it questions the extent to which comparative law as a method can further the relationship between different levels of law making by distinct legal actors. It is timely to bring mainstream comparative law into conversation with critical perspectives from other disciplines such as postcolonial theory and poststructuralism when studying non-Western law. These issues have been firmly placed on the research agenda of comparative law scholars for quite a few years but studying these questions from the perspective of traditional knowledge brings a new outlook to these debates

Space art as a critique of space law

This article traces the shared history of space law and space art, putting a spotlight on the work of African artists who retell the history and future of space travel from the perspective of the African archive, producing a more inclusive history for humanity than that produced by the seemingly lofty ideals of national and international space laws

Materiality and the ontological turn in the anthropocene : establishing a dialogue between law, anthropology and eco-philosophy

One of the earlier editorial pieces of the Journal of Human Rights and the Environment opened with the quote of the American anthropologist Margaret Mead ‘[w]e won’t have a society if we destroy the environment’. 1 Unfortunately, if we look into the evidence of biophysical signs, the threat of environmental breakdown is eminent,2 and humanity’s survival might indeed be under threat. Our ecological footprint on Earth is at such a scale that we find ourselves in a geological epoch called the Anthropocene, 3 characterised as it is by human terraforming of the Earth. 4 Our biosphere is sick and behaves like an infected organism; every living organism in the biosphere is declining. The evidence is increasingly clear: in a scientific study commissioned by the United Nations in 2005, it was reported that humans are responsible for the extinction of 50,000 – 55,000 species each year.

Comparative environmental law and orientalism:reading beyond the 'text' of traditional knowledge protection

This article uses traditional knowledge as a case study to address multiple discussions in the field of comparative law. First, it addresses the theoretical challenge of the role of comparative law as a critical research tool in the development of environmental law. Second, within the context of transnational legal processes, it questions the extent to which comparative law as a method can further the relationship between different levels of law making by distinct legal actors. It is timely to bring mainstream comparative law into conversation with critical perspectives from other disciplines such as postcolonial theory and poststructuralism when studying non-Western law. These issues have been firmly placed on the research agenda of comparative law scholars for quite a few years but studying these questions from the perspective of traditional knowledge brings a new outlook to these debates

An alternative ethics for research:Levinas and the unheard voices and unseen faces

Some social scientists have criticised the workings of research-ethics committees because their biomedical model is ill-suited to social-science research in both practical and philosophical terms. In this paper we review these criticisms and propose an alternative approach to ethical review that is based on the philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas

Between law and lore : the tragedy of traditional knowledge

EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

A human right to science?:precarious labor and basic rights in science and bioprospecting

Does everyone have the right to benefit from science? If so, what shape should benefits take? This article exposes the inequalities involved in bioprospecting through a relatively neglected human right, the right to benefit from science (HRS). Although underexplored in the literature, it is acknowledged that market-based conservation practices, such as bioprospecting, often rely on cheap “casual” labor. In contrast to critical discourses exposing the exploitation and misappropriation of indigenous people's cultural and self-determination rights in relation to bioprospecting (i.e., biopiracy), the exploitation of a low-skilled labor force for science has been little examined from a human rights perspective. Reliance on cheap labor is not limited just to those directly involved in creating local biodiversity inventories but constitutes a whole set of other workers (cooks, porters, and logistical support staff), who contribute indirectly to the advancements of science and whose contribution is barely acknowledged, let alone financially remunerated. As precarious workers, it is difficult for laborers to use existing national and international labor laws to fight for recognition of their basic rights or easily to rely on biodiversity and environmental laws to negotiate recognition of their contribution to science. We explore to what extent the HRS can be used to encourage governments, civil society, and companies to provide basic labor and social rights to science. This should be of keen interest to geographers, who for the most part have limited engagement in human rights law, and has wider significance for those interested in exploitative labor and rights violations in the emerging bio- and green economy

Unconditional hospitality in times of Covid-19 : rethinking social welfare provisions for asylum seekers in Scotland through ethical vulnerability analysis

We deploy a novel and radical approach to vulnerability theory to investigate Scotland's response to asylum seekers’ vulnerability during the COVID-19 pandemic and test Scotland's self-affirmation as a hospitable country. Our ethical vulnerability analysis enhances Fineman's vulnerability analysis by denationalising the vulnerable subject and locating her within our ‘uneven globalised world’. We further enrich this fuller version of vulnerability analysis with insights from Levinas's and Derrida's radical vulnerability theory and ethics of hospitality. We demonstrate how our ethical vulnerability analysis enables us to subvert the hostile premise of migration laws and policies, and thus fundamentally redefine relationships between guests and hosts so that the host is compelled to respond to the Other's vulnerability. We argue that this hospitable impulse yields a generous and absolute commitment to progressive social welfare provision for asylum seekers, which brings Scotland closer to fulfilling its aspirations to be a hospitable host by welcoming the Other

Are ecological processes that select beneficial traits in agricultural microbes nature's intellectual property rights?

Novel beneficial traits in agricultural microbes represent inventive steps of nature, but the inability of patent laws to reward nonhuman inventors has led to conflicts over microbial ownership rights and presents barriers to the sharing of benefits