Environmental Law and the Unsustainability of Sustainable Development: A Tale of Disenchantment and of Hope.

IF 0.8 Q2 LAW

LAW AND CRITIQUE Pub Date : 2022-09-08 DOI:10.1007/s10978-022-09323-4

Louis J Kotzé, Sam Adelman

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Abstract

In this article we argue that sustainable development is not a socio-ecologically friendly principle. The principle, which is deeply embedded in environmental law, policymaking and governance, drives environmentally destructive neoliberal economic growth that exploits and degrades the vulnerable living order. Despite seemingly well-meaning intentions behind the emergence of sustainable development, it almost invariably facilitates exploitative economic development activities that exacerbate systemic inequalities and injustices without noticeably protecting all life forms in the Anthropocene. We conclude the article by examining an attempt to construct alternatives to sustainable development through the indigenous onto-epistemology of buen vivir. While no panacea, buen vivir is a worldview that offers the potential to critically rethink how environmental law could re-orientate away from its 'centered', gendered and anthropocentric, neoliberal sustainable development ontology, to a radically different ontology that embraces ecologically sustainable ways of seeing, being, knowing and caring.

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环境法与可持续发展的不可持续性:一个幻灭与希望的故事

在本文中，我们认为可持续发展不是一个社会生态友好的原则。这一原则深深根植于环境法、政策制定和治理中，推动了破坏环境的新自由主义经济增长，剥削和削弱了脆弱的生活秩序。尽管可持续发展的出现背后似乎是善意的，但它几乎总是促进剥削性的经济发展活动，加剧了系统性的不平等和不公正，而没有明显地保护人类世的所有生命形式。在本文的最后，我们考察了一种尝试，即通过“幸福生活”的本土本体认识论来构建可持续发展的替代方案。虽然不是万灵药，但buen vivir是一种世界观，它提供了批判性地重新思考环境法如何重新定位的潜力，从其“中心”，性别和人类中心，新自由主义可持续发展本体论，到一个完全不同的本体论，包括生态可持续的方式来看待，存在，了解和关心。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

LAW AND CRITIQUE LAW-

CiteScore

2.30

自引率

25.00%

发文量

期刊介绍： Law and Critique is the prime international critical legal theory journal. It has been published for 20 years and is associated with the Critical Legal Conference. Law and Critique covers all aspects of legal theory, jurisprudence and substantive law that are approached from a critical perspective. Law and Critique has introduced into legal scholarship a variety of schools of thought, such as postmodernism; feminism; queer theory; critical race theory; literary approaches to law; psychoanalysis; law and the humanities; law and aesthetics and post-colonialism. Postmodern jurisprudence, law and aesthetics and law and psychoanalysis were pioneered in Law and Critique which remains the most authoritative international source for these schools of thought. Law and Critique is keen to translate and incorporate non-English critical legal thought. More specifically, Law and Critique encourages the submission of articles in the areas of critical legal theory and history, law and literature, law and psychoanalysis, feminist legal theory, critical race theory, law and post-colonialism; postmodern jurisprudence, law and aesthetics; legal phenomenology; and law and autopoiesis. Past special issues include: ''Critical Legal Education''; ''The Gender of Law''; ''Law and Postmodernism''; ''Law and Literature''; ''Law and Post-colonialism'', ''Law and Theatre''; ''Jean-Luc Nancy and Law''; ''Agamben and Law''. Law and Critique is ranked amongst the top 20 per cent of law journals by the Australian Research Council.