Earth Law
Emerging Ecocentric Law—A Guide for Practitioners
Second Edition

The second edition of Earth Law: Emerging Ecocentric Law—A Guide for Practitioners thoroughly expands and updates the world’s leading coursebook on Earth law. With the Rights of Nature as its most prominent movement, Earth law is the rapidly emerging body of ecocentric law that seeks to recognize Nature’s intrinsic value and rights and advances other innovative legal approaches to living in harmony with the Earth.

Earth Law is for students, practicing lawyers, community advocates, and policymakers who seek to preserve a habitable planet and question whether current environmental law is sufficient for the task. Through explorations of constitutional, statutory, common law, and customary law, this book covers the many ways that Nature and human environmental rights can have seats at the table of law—in courts, legislatures, administrative bodies, enforcement agencies, and civil society. This comprehensively updated second edition includes recent landmark Rights of Nature legislative wins such as legal guardianship for Spain’s Mar Manor and Panama’s national Rights of Nature law, crucial court cases including the one for the rights of Peru’s Marañón River, Indigenous-led legal initiatives recognizing Nature as a rights-holder and kin, international court cases supporting the rights of future generations and Nature, and many more.

A groundbreaking and unique coursebook, Earth Law provides:

• Thorough and up-to-date explorations of critical topics such as rights of future generations, atmospheric trust litigation, the public trust doctrine, ecocide, the climate necessity defense, Indigenous Earth law, bioregional governance, and Rights of Nature laws in their many forms 

• Expansive examination of the settings in which Earth law is developing and the principles of Earth Jurisprudence on which it is based 

• Practical and theoretical foundations for developing systems of ecological governance and the ethical responsibilities of lawyers, individually and collectively

• Accumulated knowledge, experience, and perspectives of dozens of lawyers, researchers, and advocates active in the field 

The updated second edition includes: 

• Nine brand-new chapters, including ones with specific geographical focuses, broader concepts in Earth law, and movement lawyering

• All 24 chapters heavily revised with the most critical information on novel applications of Earth law in various frameworks, including Indigenous-led Rights of Nature campaigns, national and international legal campaigns, and more

• Case excerpts and analysis from the many crucial developments that have occurred since the publication of the first edition