7 . Ecocentric Law: The Rights of Nature and Natural Law

“That's the problem with law. It's always playing catch up with the rich, dense, textured nature of reality.”

- Abhayraj Naik

“I'm a student of beauty now, and I will study beauty until the day i die, and hopefully after I'm dead - because then things could get really beautiful.”

- Dr. John Borrows and Lindsay Borrows

SYNOPSIS:

This week we’re traveling from British Columbia to Bangalore, exploring two different legal systems that are revolutionizing the very foundations of our global system of law. In transforming how we advocate and litigate on behalf of nature, these approaches require legal professionals to develop a whole new series of skills and sensibilities which revolve around translating the lifeworlds of other beings.

The wonderful daughter-father duo of Lindsay and John Borrows will talk about indigenous law systems in Canada. They are both lawyers and members of the Chippewas of the Nawash First Nation in Ontario. John created the world's first dual Indigenous law program at the University of Victoria in British Columbia, and Lindsay’s work supports Indigenous communities in revitalizing their traditional laws for contemporary contexts. What I found so astonishing about this conversation is how indigenous law is written in the land itself, as a verb, a living being. Nature is the professor. Their case laws brim with interspecies stories.

We’ll then jump into the Rights of Nature with Abhayraj Naik. The Rights of Nature is a legal tool, now present in over 15 countries and 50 cities around the world, that confers the rights usually given to human beings over to other forms of life. Why does this matter? Put quite bluntly, under the current system of law in almost every country, nature is our slave. He’ll get into some fascinating components of the RON in India and the thrilling, often philosophical, new sets of questions they open up. Abhayraj is an activist-academic legal practitioner, co-founder of the Initiative for Climate Action, and holds degrees from the National Law School of India University and the Yale Law School.

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GUESTS BIOS:

John Borrows has transformed Canada’s understanding of how indigenous and non-indigenous law can co-exist and created the world's first dual Indigenous law program at the University of Victoria in British Columbia. His publications include Recovering Canada; The Resurgence of Indigenous Law and Drawing Out Law: A Spirit's Guide. He is the 2017 Killam Prize winner in Social Sciences and the 2019 Molson Prize Winner from the Canada Council for the Arts, the 2020 Governor General’s Innovation Award, and the 2021 Canadian Bar Association President’s Award winner. He was appointed as an Officer of the Order of Canada in 2020. John is a members of the Chippewa First Nation in Ontario, Canada.

Lindsay Keegitah Borrows is mixed-rooted Anishinaabe and a citizen of the Chippewas of Nawash First Nation. She is a lawyer, writer and teacher, whose work aims to support Indigenous communities to revitalize their traditional laws for application in contemporary contexts. She has worked with many legal traditions including Anishinaabe, Haíɫzaqv, Mi’kmaq, nuučaan̓uł, St’át’imc, Denezhu, Tsilhqot’in and Māori. She has worked as a lawyer at the Indigenous Law Research Unit (University of Victoria Faculty of Law), and at West Coast Environmental Law on the Revitalizing Indigenous Laws for Land, Air and Water Project. She is a new professor at Queen's University Faculty of Law.

Abhayraj Naik is a lawyer, activist-academic, community builder, and design hacker for transformative change. At Azim Premji University, he teaches interdisciplinary courses on climate, environment, justice, law, policy, and research methods at a number of universities across India. He has published widely on issues in environmental law and policy, regulation theory and implementation, climate change, mobility rights, social justice. He holds degrees from the National Law School of India University and Yale Law School.

QUOTES:

John & Lindsay

• The archive of law is literally written on the earth, and beings like trees or plants are our professors.

• Law is a verb, it is something you do. In our own legal tradition, the teachers of the law are who we find in the natural world around us.

• We're not just trying to revitalize indigenous law, but also to bring a new lens to common law.

• It’s like a little grain of yeast that changes the whole mixture. It will have effects on other parts of the system, and just like the rising of yeast, it lifts everything up.

• A tongue is healthier when connected to our hearts, and laws when written on our hearts.

• Our traditions are not just something to hold tight to from the past. They're always going to be changing and speaking to us in new ways.

Abhay

• This paradigmatic shift, the possibility of a new worldview, is what makes thinking about and fighting for the Rights of Nature worthwhile.

• Once you have the Rights of Nature featured in a legal context, you get to tricky questions such as: How does one know what nature wants in this context? How does one find a voice for nature who is a legitimate representative? How can I trust what this representative of nature says when they are very much a human being like all of us? How might one cross examine nature?

• As a lawyer I constantly have these very fantastical visions of a river flowing in through a courtroom and saying things to the judge.

• That's the problem with law. It's always playing catch up with the rich, dense, textured nature of reality.

• The ones who might best know how a river feels are those who have spent time in the river, or those who as per their worldview believe they are the river, that they are the kit and kin of the river.

• I have a sense of discomfort with any kind of very monolithic romanticization of India and its spirituality.

LINKS

RIGHTS OF NATURE AND ECOCENTRIC LAW

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