RSS Feed
Earth Jurisprudence: Making the law work for nature
September 22 — 26, 2008
Cormac Cullinan, Mellese Damtie, Ng’ang’a Thiong’o, Ian Mason, Liz Rivers
15% summer discount for applications made before 31st July 2008
A limited number of bursaries are available for this course.
The dominant western industrial legal system is founded on promoting or protecting human interests. There is an expanding debate and practice around assigning rights to the planet and all species. What are the characteristics of a governance system established to protect the rights of all members of a particular ecological community?
Course Overview
This dynamic course will address how to fundamentally change culture and society so that all species on Earth have a future. This course will provide participants with the unique opportunity to learn in-depth about the theory and philosophy underlying Earth Jurisprudence. They will address the details of its application and its relationship to broader social issues.
Participants will look at how the existing mechanisms used to regulate human behaviour (laws, cultural beliefs, political structures etc) are impeding the changes that need to happen and what we need to do to change them so that our societies are able to make the necessary evolutionary leap. This is not only about changes coming through Governments but also through other ways we live out our lives and conduct business.
Leaders in the field will share their experience and thoughts in this radical and innovative approach to aligning law and community governance with nature. Participants will hear examples of how the law is being used to enable indigenous communities to regain control of their ancestral lands and resources. The group will discuss how Earth Jurisprudence can be applied in their own cultural and work contexts.
This course is run in association with The Gaia Foundation and UKELA.
The purpose of this course is:
To give participants a thorough understanding of Earth Jurisprudence and its potential role in creating Earth-centred human communities. It will be intellectually stimulating and challenging, emotionally and physically fulfilling, personally transformative, and great fun! Expert teachers and facilitators will support participants in developing their knowledge and skills in order that they can play a role in protecting the future of the planet.
Participants will go away with working examples of Earth Jurisprudence in practice, cutting edge ideas, ecological literacy developed through direct outdoor experience and empathic engagement with the natural world and a new way of thinking that can influence new policies, legal practice and strategy, business enterprise and community projects.
This course is intended for:
- activists and community development workers wanting to understand more about how the law can help their campaigns
- law students and academics
- lawyers interested in developing their environmental practice
- those working on how business enterprise and company laws can evolve to facilitate a better Earth Community
- anyone interested in the compelling topic of Earth rights.
Teachers
Cormac Cullinan is an environmental lawyer based in Cape Town and author of Wild Law: A Manifesto for Earth Justice.
Mellese Damtie is pioneering the research and implementation of Earth Jurisprudence as Dean of the Ethiopian Civil Service College’s Department of Law.
Ng’ang’a Thiong’o is a legal advisor to indigenous communities in central Kenya. He has worked alongside Nobel Peace Prize Winner Professor Wangari Maathai for many years.
Ian Mason is a practising barrister, Director of the Earth Jurisprudence Resource Centre (EJRC), and is also Head of Law and Economics at the School of Economic Science in London.
Elizabeth Rivers (course facilitator) is a former commercial lawyer, now a facilitator and coach who works to enhance creativity in the service of sustainable change.
Areas of study within the course:
- Earth Jurisprudence: Participants will analyse the meaning of Earth Jurisprudence as a new way of thinking that facilitates innovation. They will explore its relationship to the Great Jurisprudence and Wild Law and its laws, content and principles.
- Community Ecological Governance: This course will offer an introduction to the principles and methodology of the CEG approach. Speakers will offer insights into particular cases in which they have participated.
- The Great Jurisprudence: Participants will analyse the notions of Stories of Origin and the Great Jurisprudence in detail and discussing the relevance of these concepts to new ways of looking at governance and law.
- The Great Work: Participants will explore what Thomas Berry terms “the Great Work,” through which we as a species move from being the planet’s plunderers to its benefactors, and become “present to the planet in a mutually beneficial manner”.
- African perspectives: The course teachers from Kenya and Ethiopia will offer their perspectives of Earth Jurisprudence in the context of Africa.
- Values, organisation and culture: Participants will explore indigenous understanding of Earth-centred law.
- Economics, Enterprise and Earth Jurisprudence: Participants will be encouraged to engage with an Earth-to-Earth mentality in terms of how we think about the relationship between economic production and environmental sustainability. They will explore how to re-design future business enterprises so that entrepreneurs function as responsible members of the Earth community, whilst considering how company law and other regulators need to evolve to facilitate this.
- Spiritual and philosophical aspects of Earth Jurisprudence: The course will also offer a space for participants to rethink the human-nonhuman relationship and discuss the spiritual and philosophical dimensions of Earth Jurisprudence in depth.
An Introduction to Earth Jurisprudence
In many parts of the world, biological diversity and the basic ecological resources communities need to survive are becoming more acute. Humanity faces very real and serious challenges if it is to survive. The planet is crying out for a change of direction. But what should this change of direction consist of and where will it take us? How can we rebuild a healthy relationship with our planet and with each other? And what policy framework and governance structures should we turn to in order to create a more harmonious relationship between humans, non-human species and the Earth?
Thomas Berry calls for us to define a new Earth Jurisprudence, a notion that challenges us to shift our thinking from a humans-only orientation to a more Earth centred approach based on an understanding of ourselves as an inextricable part of the Earth’s living systems.
Earth Jurisprudence is premised on the understanding that law and governance should protect the wellbeing and integral functioning of the planet so that all components of the Earth Community live in healthy ecosystems that sustain the diversity of the natural world. The mission must be to re-envision law and governance and work to open spaces that allow us to support the wellbeing of the Earth as a whole. This involves fostering mutually enhancing relationships among humans and nature based on reciprocity, restraining potentially damaging human activities and recognising the rights of nature.
This radical and innovative approach to law and governance is guiding and inspiring a wide range of people and organisations in many different parts of the world.
To read an article from Resurgence by Barrister Ian Mason on Earth Jurisprudence click here.
Course Fees
For businesses: One week £1,200
For individuals, NGOs & Educators: One week £700
These include accommodation, food, field trips and all teaching sessions.
15% summer discount for applications made before 31st July 2008
How to make an application – click here
A limited number of bursaries are available for this course Click here for more information
For further information about Schumacher College please see About the College
New feature – reserve your place now
To provisionally reserve a place for 5 days, email us your contact details and the name of the course admin@schumachercollege.org.uk
We will hold the place for five working days for reservations – three weeks before a course or earlier. After five days we will automatically offer your place to someone else if we have not received your application.
Schumacher College is part of the Dartington Hall Trust, a company limited by guarantee, registered in England and as a charity (company no. 1485560, charity no. 279756). Registered office: The Elmhirst Centre, Dartington Hall, Totnes, Devon TQ9 6EL, UK.