Environmental Stewardship: Confluence of Law and Religion?
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17159/1727-3781/2022/v25i0a13879Keywords:
environmental law, climate change, ecology, anthropomorphism, ecocentrism, earth jurisprudence, moral convictionAbstract
Why should we bear responsibility for the degradation of the environment? A wide range of responses is on offer to this question. Common to them all is they are all rooted in one or the other ontological and epistemic point of departure or set of premises. This raises the question of the relationship between law and religion and linkages of religion with environmental concerns. What emerges, perhaps against the volition of the scientific world, is that the foundational links between environmental law and religion are significant – even where environmentalists shirk from or even denounce religion. Justification of this view is found in concise survey of the essence of law and religion. The analysis leads to the notion of stewardship, a concept steeped in, but not exclusive to religion in its diverse manifestations. Examples of ecocentric religious attitudes – ranging from the traditions of the North American Anishinabek, aboriginal Australians and indigenous African culture to Buddhism and Hinduism, Judaism and Christianity in its principal manifestations – provide a broad picture of adherence to beliefs in human responsibility to take care of the environment. This widespread conviction of stewardship endures despite awareness of the human inability to create or sovereignly determine the course of nature (here termed "the hypothesis of incompetence").
Downloads
References
Bibliography
Literature
Aguilera-Barchet B A History of Western Public Law (Springer Cham 2015) DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-11803-1
Aronowsky L "Gas Guzzling Gaia, or: A Prehistory of Climate Change Denialism" 2021 Critical Inquiry 306-327 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1086/712129
Artosi A "Reasonableness, Common Sense, and Science" in Bongiovanni G, Sartor G and Valentini C (eds) Reasonableness and Law (Springer Dordrecht 2009) 69-78 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-8500-0_3
Awuah-Nyamekye S Managing the Environmental Crisis in Ghana: The Role of African Traditional Religion and Culture with Special Reference to the Berekum Traditional Area (Cambridge Scholars Newcastle upon Tyne 2014)
Bergandi D "Ecology, Evolution, Ethics: In Search of a Meta-Paradigm – An Introduction" in Bergandi D (ed) The Structural Links Between Ecology, Evolution and Ethics – The Virtuous Epistemic Circle (Springer Dordrecht 2013) 1-28 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-5067-8_1
Borrows J "Living Law on a Living Earth: Aboriginal Religion, Law, and the Constitution" in Moon R (ed) Law and Religious Pluralism in Canada (UBC Press Vancouver 2008) 161-191 DOI: https://doi.org/10.59962/9780774814997-009
Burdon PD Earth Jurisprudence: Private Property and the Environment (Routledge Abingdon 2015) DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203797013
Callicott JB "Book Review - Eugene C Hargrove: Foundations of Environmental Ethics" 1989 Environmental Ethics 169-177 DOI: https://doi.org/10.5840/enviroethics198911232
Callicott JB "Ecology and Moral Ontology" in Bergandi D (ed) The Structural Links Between Ecology, Evolution and Ethics: The Virtuous Epistemic Circle (Springer Dordrecht 2013) 101-116 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-5067-8_7
Crowley TJ "Causes of Climate Change Over the Past 1000 Years" 2000 Science 270-277 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1126/science.289.5477.270
Damonte M "God, the Bible and the Environment: An Historical Excursus on the Relationship between Christian Religion and Ecology" 2017 Relations Beyond Anthropocentrism 27-46 DOI: https://doi.org/10.7358/rela-2017-001-damo
Deckha M "Initiating a Non-Anthropocentric Jurisprudence: The Rule of Law and Animal Vulnerability Under a Property Paradigm" 2013 Alta L Rev 783-814 DOI: https://doi.org/10.29173/alr76
Du Plessis A "Perceptive Approaches to the Interpretation and Realisation of South Africa's Constitutional Environmental Right" 2009 SAJELP 129-156
Fisher-Ogden D and Saxer SR "World Religions and Clean Water" 2006 DELPF 63-117
Gert J Brute Rationality: Normativity and Human Action (Cambridge University Press Cambridge 2004) DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511487088
Grossi P Das Recht in der Europäischen Geschichte (Gerhard Kuck translation) (CH Beck München 2007)
Hallaq WB " ‘Muslim Rage’ and Islamic Law" 2002-2003 Hastings Law Journal 54 1705-1719
Hepburn S "Carbon Rights as New Property: The benefits of statutory verification" 2009 Sydney Law Review 239-271
Hoegh-Guldberg O et al "Impacts of 1.5°C of Global Warming on Natural and Human Systems" in Masson-Delmotte V et al (eds) Global Warming of 1.5°C. An IPCC Special Report on the Impacts of Global Warming of 1.5°C Above Pre-Industrial Levels and Related Global Greenhouse Gas Emission Pathways, in the Context of Strengthening the Global Response to the Threat of Climate Change, Sustainable Development, and Efforts to Eradicate Poverty (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Geneva 2019) 175-311
Kabilsingh C "Early Buddhist Views on Nature” in Badiner AH (ed) Dharma Gala: A Harvest of Essays in Buddhism and Ecology (Berkeley Parallax Press 1990) 8-13
Kim R, Blanchard C and Kotzé L "Law, Systems, and Planet Earth: Editorial" 2022 Earth System Governance 1-4 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.esg.2021.100127
Lees E "Property in the Anthropocene" 2019 Wm & Mary Envtl L & Pol'y Rev 541-594
Leopold A A Sand County Almanac (New York Oxford University Press 1949)
Loth MA "Limits of Private Law: Enriching Legal Dogmatics" 2007 Hofstra Law Review 1725-1751
McOwen MJB "An Earth Used with Judgment, not to Excess: Distilling a Mormon Approach to Environmental Law" 2007 J L & Relig 673-723 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S074808140000240X
Millstein RL "Understanding Leopold’s Concept of ‘Interdependence’ for Environmental Ethics and Conservation Biology" 2018 Philosophy of Science 1127–1139 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1086/699721
Montesquieu, Baron de (Charles de Secondat) Spirit of Laws (multiple editions and translations, first published as De l'esprit des loix Genève 1748)
Morriss AP and Cramer BD "Disestablishing Environmentalism" 2009 Environmental Law 309-396 DOI: https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1374066
Narits R "Principles of Law and Legal Dogmatics as Methods Used by Constitutional Courts" 2007 Juridica International 15-22
Nir D "A Critical Examination of the Jewish Environmental Law of Bal Taschit" 2005-2006 Georgetown International Environmental Law Review 335-353
Rautenbach C "Umkhosi Ukweshwama: Revival of a Zulu Festival in Celebration of the Universe’s Rites of Passage" in Bennett TW (ed) Traditional African Religions in South African Law (UCT Press Claremont 2011) 63-89.
Sudira M and Sudantra IK "The Control of Spatial Utilization in the Tourism Areas Oriented to Public Welfare and Justice" 2019 Journal of Law, Policy and Globalization 35-42
Sylvanus A "A Survey of the Threats / Impacts of Accelerating Climate Changes and Global Warming in the Light of the 2019 Report of the World Meteorological Organization and Other Available Data Documenting Physical Signs of Climate Changes in around the Global Environment and Rising Temperatures in Nigeria" 2020 Journal of Law, Policy and Globalization 38-44
Tookey DL "Southeast Asian Environmentalism at Its Crossroads: Learning Lessons from Thailand's Eclectic Approach to Environmental Law and Policy" 1999 Georgetown International Environmental Law Review 307-362
Van der Walt C "Humanity's Perceived Right to Life and the Impact Thereof on the Environment: A Perspective from Deuteronomy 20:19-20" 2016 In die Skriflig / In Luce Verbi 1-8 DOI: https://doi.org/10.4102/ids.v50i4.2079
Venter F Constitutionalism and Religion (Edward Elgar Cheltenham 2015) DOI: https://doi.org/10.4337/9781785361623
Venter F Global Features of Constitutional Law (Wolf Legal Nijmegen 2010)
White L "The Historical Roots of Our Ecologic Crisis" 1967 Science 1203-1207 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1126/science.155.3767.1203
Wigelsworth J Deism in Enlightenment England: Theology, Politics, and Newtonian Public Science (Manchester University Press 2009) DOI: https://doi.org/10.7228/manchester/9780719078729.001.0001
Wright G "Climate Regulation as if the Planet Mattered: The Earth Jurisprudence Approach to Climate Change, Environmental and Earth Law" 2013 Environmental and Earth Law Journal 33-57
Zuidervaart L Religion, Truth, and Social Transformation – Essays in Reformational Philosophy (McGill-Queen's University Press Montreal & Kingston 2016) DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/9780773598911
Case law
Christian Education South Africa v Minister of Education 2000 4 SA 757 (CC)
Internet sources
United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26) 2021 Glasgow Climate Pact https://unfccc.int/sites/default/files/resource/cop26_auv_2f_ cover_decision.pdf accessed 24 July 2022
Johnson R and Cureton A 2022 Kant's Moral Philosophy - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kant-moral/#NET accessed 24 July 2022
United Nations 2015 Transforming Our World: The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/ post2015/transformingourworld/publication accessed 24 July 2022
Waldron J 2016 Property and Ownership - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2016/entries/property/ accessed 24 July 2022
Published
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2022 Francois Venter
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
.png){kind=spacer}