Uncovering the sacred in environmental law

Presenter: Emily Barritt, King's College London.
Discussant: Benjamin Coudurier, PhD candidate at Sciences Po Law School.

Environmental law is replete with allusions to the sacred. Sacred considerations permeate environmental law making at many different levels – in constitutions, through legislation, and in courts. The sacred represents a transcendent normative framework that can guide environmental behaviour alongside legal obligations. At the same time, environmental law and environmental legal ideas can clash with ideas of the sacred, particularly in relation to understandings about the divinity of natural sites and beings. Despite the increasing visibility of spiritual considerations in environmental legal arrangements, however, environmental law scholarship lacks a systematic account of the relationship between the sacred and environmental law. This piece seeks to lay the foundations for such an account.

Contact: events.edd@sciencespo.fr
Invite-only event.