Decoding the West’s Relationship to the Environment: A Critical Discourse Analysis of Reductionism in International Legal Conventions on the Environment

Abstract

My Masters thesis builds on the findings and developments of my directed study under Dr. Albert Cath which analyzed “the discourse on sustainabilities from the western perspective on the environment through the lens of neoliberal economics and the simplicity paradigm to contextualize and compare its hegemonic positionality to that of non-western sustainabilities or environmental approaches that emerge from the theoretical foundations of ‘epistemologies of the South’ and Indigenous knowledge production” (Moniz 2021, 1). This research exposed the vulnerabilities and unilateral nature of sustainabilities as defined by the Western paradigm and its institutions.

This thesis aims to analyze the language, intent and thematic narratives of major international environmental conventions and/or treaties: United Nations Conference on the Human Environment in Stockholm (Stockholm Conference), United Nations Framework on Climate Change, the Tokyo Protocol and the Paris Accord, as these treaties establish a significant part of International environmental law and international climate change law. My approach to these doctrines is framed by the epistemologies and literature of non-western world that seeks to position the environment as an integral part of the society and one’s own family. Through this lens I study how the conventions subject the environment to simplification and reductionism and I support this case with an analysis of the historical underpinnings of law from a non-western perspective. Additionally, I weigh the implications of the hegemonic capitalist world framing of western laws, science and education policies and practices toward the environment. I contextualize cases of Maori and Potawatomi Nation and other Indigenous/Native American communities to study the circumstanc