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INTERNATIONAL LEGAL THEORY: Symposium: Locating Nature
* Usha Natarajan, Assistant Professor, The American University in Cairo [
]; Kishan Khoday, Regional Practice Leader for Environment and Energy in the Arab States, United Nations Development Programme [
]. The views in this article belong to the authors and do not reflect the views of the United Nations, UNDP, or its member states. We are grateful to David Kennedy and the Institute for Global Law and Policy at Harvard Law School for supporting the Locating Nature project. We thank Sheila Jasanoff, Balakrishnan Rajagopal, Thomas Skouteris, Mick Smith, and Robert Weller, as well as our fellow project participants Vanessa Lamb, Sergio Latorre, Tyler McCreary, Karin Mickelson, and Ileana Porras, and two anonymous reviewers, for their insights and support.
1.
Introduction
Scholars, scientists, policymakers, and public opinion increasingly perceive human-made ecological change as capable of posing an existential threat to humanity. In recent decades, many of our planet's ecosystem functions have rapidly deteriorated.1As population and consumption levels increase, and pressures on natural assets continue unabated, the future may be dire, especially for communities on the front lines of ecological change. Societies all over the world have sought solutions to environmental challenges and one of the places they have turned to is international law, as a corrective force for harmful environmental trends, and a means of forging global compacts for action.
A series of multilateral environmental agreements emerged in recent decades on issues such as stemming climate change and desertification,2and protecting biodiversity and the ozone layer.3They aim for more equitable and sustainable patterns of resource use. However, progress has been either limited or non-existent.4Ecosystems continue to deteriorate, with particularly critical consequences for the poor who face mounting pressures on their everyday well-being as access to clean air, water, food, and sustainable livelihoods becomes more precarious. International lawyers have sought to increase the effectiveness of international environmental law through measures such as enhanced financing, market-based instruments, and technology transfer.5This article argues that such efforts, well intentioned as they are, are incapable of creating the type of transformational change needed to move towards greater equity and sustainability.
This article identifies structures in international environmental...