RULNAT

Ruling on Nature. Animals and the Environment before the Court - RULNAT Objectives The aim of this project is to study how nature-related issues are brought before law courts; how the environment and animal protection are handled at judicial level by lawyers, activists, and the state; how nature is ‘judicialised’ and ‘governed’ through the judiciary in different countries, and how the global debate on acknowledging some kind of rights to nature and animals is implemented in actual litigations. There are important intellectual and political stakes in understanding these processes, and the project is based on the theoretical assumption that a study of judiciary cases in all their multifaceted complexity provides a pertinent and original angle from which to understand how human relationships to animals or to the environment are shaped – or not – by legal action. Context The animal and nature protection debate has begun to intensify across the world, and animal welfare and ecological issues are repeatedly brought before courts. These issues are now considered a complex and delicate matter involving animals' or nature’s own interests, particularly (for animals) their right to be spared useless suffering and to live in suitable conditions according to their individual and specific needs. Should we then rethink our legal relationship to animals and to nature? Animals are ‘things’, ‘goods’, ‘property’, legally speaking, though they may be granted various types of protection; they are not legal persons. Should they be conferred legal rights (and not simply the ‘right’ to be protected)? If so, how are we to articulate these rights with human ones? Christopher Stone’s idea of attributing a legal standing to nature has become a juridical tool that, despite being the object of much criticism, carries considerable weight all over the world; and some legislatures or courts have granted legal personhood to various natural resources. A similar move concerning animals has been initiated, questioning the boundary between humans and animals. Methodology The project is based on the idea that the close association of juridical and anthropological studies can bring a new, more comprehensive understanding of the issues at stake. We shall therefore pay full attention to the complex, long-term judicial story of lawsuits, by conducting case studies in different countries, associating traditional ethnographic methods and legal analysis. The project is structured around five broad questions: - Animals and natural resources as holders of ‘rights’ - Attributing ‘legal personhood’ to animals and natural resources - Conflicts between humans and animals - The role of experts in court cases - Legal precedents and the global debate Originality The specific and distinctive focus of the project, differentiating it from other work on the environment or on human-animal relationships, is the analysis of real litigations within a comparative perspective, and the close combination of legal and anthropological approaches. Participants A consortium of three French research centres and one Belgian scientific partner has been created. The team comprises social anthropologists with experience of pertinent fieldwork, legal scholars with a particular interest in comparative law on the relevant issues, and environmental lawyers (six French researchers, in collaboration with seven foreign researchers); support for three young researchers is requested (one PhD and two postdoctoral fellowships). Outcome Some fifteen papers will be edited in international-level publications, and ethnographic videos will be produced. A book will compile contributions from a final symposium organized in the last year of the project. We plan to hold regular meetings (open workshops or seminars with invited researchers). A blog will be dedicated to the project, providing additional visibility to the project.