Understanding How Locating Nature Making and Unmaking International Law Reveals Environmental Governance Failures
International environmental law stands at a crossroads. Despite decades of multilateral environmental agreements and an explosion of environmental regulations, our planet’s ecosystems continue to deteriorate at an alarming rate. The concept of Locating Nature Making and Unmaking International Law provides a critical lens through which we can understand this paradox – why environmental protection frameworks fail despite their proliferation, and how the very foundations of international law may be structurally incompatible with meaningful environmental protection.
This groundbreaking analysis, pioneered by scholars like Usha Natarajan and Kishan Khoday, challenges conventional wisdom about international environmental law’s protective potential. Rather than viewing environmental degradation as a problem requiring technical solutions within existing legal frameworks, Locating Nature Making and Unmaking International Law reveals how fundamental concepts of international law – sovereignty, development, property, and human rights – are deeply intertwined with particular understandings of nature that facilitate ecological harm.
Table of Contents
The Fundamental Problem: Why Locating Nature Making and Unmaking International Law Matters
The North-South Divide and Environmental Justice
The persistent failure of international environmental law cannot be understood without examining the north-south divide that has characterized environmental negotiations since the 1970s. Developed nations, having achieved industrialization through extensive natural resource exploitation, now advocate for environmental protection while developing nations struggle to balance poverty eradication with ecological concerns.
This dynamic reveals a deeper injustice at the heart of environmental governance. The principle of permanent sovereignty over natural resources emerged from post-colonial struggles for economic independence, yet it has been co-opted into frameworks that prioritize resource extraction over ecological protection. The concept of Locating Nature Making and Unmaking International Law helps us understand how these seemingly progressive principles actually reinforce patterns of environmental exploitation.
The Modern Construction of “Environment”
International environmental law emerged from a specifically Western understanding of environmentalism that developed in the 1960s and 1970s. This understanding, while appearing to represent a departure from resource-extractive models, actually represents the “ultimate modern project” – one that seeks to comprehend and control nature as a totality.
The creation of the “global environment” as a regulatory sphere brings with it new forms of what Agrawal terms “environmentality” – technologies of governance that turn people into accomplices in environmental regulation while maintaining the fundamental structures that drive ecological degradation. Locating Nature Making and Unmaking International Law reveals how this creates an illusion of protection while actually facilitating continued environmental harm.
Sovereignty and the Control of Nature: Core to Locating Nature Making and Unmaking International Law
The Co-Production of States and Nature
One of the most profound insights of Locating Nature Making and Unmaking International Law concerns the relationship between sovereignty and environmental control. Modern sovereignty has been fundamentally shaped by assumptions about the productive use of nature. The capacity of societies to transform and control their environment became a marker of civilization and a prerequisite for sovereign recognition.
This has profound ecological consequences:
- Terra nullius doctrines denied sovereignty to nomadic peoples based on their different relationships with land
- Colonial powers justified resource extraction as “developing” territories toward proper sovereign status
- Post-colonial states entered the international system by demonstrating their capacity for resource exploitation
- International law continues to require states to exploit ocean resources to their “maximum sustainable yield”
Resource Nationalism and Environmental Degradation
The principle of permanent sovereignty over natural resources, while designed to protect developing nations from exploitation, has created new forms of “resource nationalism” that prioritize state control over ecological health. Locating Nature Making and Unmaking International Law demonstrates how this framework makes it nearly impossible to address transboundary environmental problems or recognize nature’s intrinsic value beyond state interests.
Recent developments in rights of nature movements challenge this paradigm, but they face fundamental conflicts with established principles of state sovereignty. When rivers or forests are granted legal personhood, they come into direct tension with the foundational assumption that states own and control the natural resources within their territories.
Development and the Commodification of Nature in Locating Nature Making and Unmaking International Law
The Eternal Growth Imperative
Perhaps nowhere is the critique of Locating Nature Making and Unmaking International Law more powerful than in its analysis of development discourse. The modern concept of limitless economic growth, which emerged during the European Enlightenment, has become the ubiquitous goal of all states and peoples.
This creates several fundamental problems:
- Development as hierarchy: The classification of states as “least-developed,” “developing,” or “developed” maintains global inequalities while obscuring the ecological costs of “progress”
- Sustainable development contradictions: The concept attempts to reconcile unlimited growth with finite ecological limits, creating what critics call a “hope that the necessary will become possible”
- Green economy illusions: Market-based solutions like carbon trading and emissions offset schemes maintain growth imperatives while providing an appearance of environmental action
The Economy as an Anti-Ecological Construct
Locating Nature Making and Unmaking International Law reveals how economic thinking is fundamentally incompatible with ecological understanding. Economics counts aggregate income – every instance of money changing hands – without accounting for the waste and resource depletion that income generation requires.
This creates perverse incentives where:
- Environmental damage generates economic activity (cleanup, restoration, healthcare costs)
- Resource depletion appears as economic gain rather than capital loss
- Pollution becomes an “externality” to be managed rather than a fundamental cost of production
- Solutions are limited to technocratic fixes within the same growth-dependent framework
The Failure of International Environmental Law Through the Lens of Locating Nature Making and Unmaking International Law
Why Environmental Specialization Fails
The segregation of environmental concerns into a specialized field of international environmental law (IEL) is itself part of the problem. Locating Nature Making and Unmaking International Law demonstrates how this specialization:
- Marginalizes environmental concerns: By treating environment as a specialized field, it allows other areas of law (trade, investment, development) to ignore ecological impacts
- Creates false technocratic solutions: IEL focuses on technical fixes rather than questioning fundamental assumptions about growth and development
- Obscures structural causes: The specialization prevents analysis of how core international legal concepts drive environmental degradation
The Politics of Environmental Protection
Recent research reveals the systematic obstruction of environmental protection frameworks by vested interests. Despite solid frameworks provided by conventions like the UNFCCC and Convention on Biological Diversity, implementation consistently fails due to:
- Industry lobbying: Fossil fuel companies spent over $3.6 billion on climate lobbying in the past decade
- Resource extraction priorities: Governments spend approximately $500 billion annually on environmentally harmful subsidies – more than triple what they spend on biodiversity protection
- Short-term national interests: States prioritize immediate economic gains over long-term environmental protection
This pattern confirms the analysis of Locating Nature Making and Unmaking International Law – the problem lies not in inadequate environmental frameworks but in fundamental structural contradictions within international law itself.
Critical Theory and Environmental Law: Advancing Locating Nature Making and Unmaking International Law
The Anthropocentrism Problem
Critical environmental law scholars identify anthropocentrism as a fundamental barrier to effective environmental protection. Locating Nature Making and Unmaking International Law extends this analysis by showing how anthropocentrism is embedded in the foundational structures of international law.
The implications are profound:
- Nature has no agency or moral standing independent of human interests
- Environmental protection occurs only when it benefits human welfare
- Rights of nature movements struggle against deeply entrenched legal frameworks that recognize only human subjects
- International law’s human rights framework, while progressive in many ways, reinforces the subordination of nature to human interests
Toward Ecocentric Alternatives
Locating Nature Making and Unmaking International Law suggests that meaningful environmental protection requires fundamental transformation of international law’s basic concepts. This might include:
- Rights of nature frameworks: Recognizing ecosystems as legal subjects with enforceable rights
- Limits to growth: Acknowledging ecological boundaries as absolute constraints on economic activity
- Indigenous law integration: Incorporating non-Western legal traditions that embody different human-nature relationships
- Earth jurisprudence: Developing legal systems based on Earth community membership rather than human dominance
Constitutional Dimensions: Environmental Constitutionalism and Locating Nature Making and Unmaking International Law
The Rise of Environmental Constitutionalism
A significant majority of the world’s constitutions now include environmental provisions. This trend toward environmental constitutionalism appears to support the analysis of Locating Nature Making and Unmaking International Law by demonstrating growing recognition that environmental protection requires fundamental legal transformation.
However, environmental constitutionalism faces several challenges:
- Design variations: Environmental constitutional provisions take many different forms, from rights-based approaches to directive principles
- Implementation gaps: Constitutional environmental rights often lack effective enforcement mechanisms
- Anthropocentric limitations: Most environmental constitutional provisions remain focused on human welfare rather than ecosystem integrity
The Contrajudicative Model
Recent scholarship identifies a “contrajudicative model” of environmental constitutionalism that relies on political rather than judicial enforcement of environmental obligations. This approach may offer a path beyond the limitations identified in Locating Nature Making and Unmaking International Law by:
- Recognizing the limits of traditional rights-based approaches to environmental protection
- Emphasizing democratic participation in environmental governance
- Creating space for alternative approaches to human-nature relationships
Future Directions: Reconstructing International Law Beyond Locating Nature Making and Unmaking International Law
Global Environmental Governance Reform
The analysis of Locating Nature Making and Unmaking International Law points toward several areas requiring fundamental reform:
- Integration across legal fields: Environmental considerations must be integrated into all areas of international law, not confined to environmental specialization
- Post-development alternatives: Moving beyond growth-dependent models toward steady-state or degrowth economic frameworks
- Earth system governance: Developing governance frameworks that recognize planetary boundaries and ecological limits
- Indigenous knowledge integration: Incorporating traditional ecological knowledge and legal systems into international frameworks
The Role of Civil Society and Grassroots Movements
Locating Nature Making and Unmaking International Law emphasizes the importance of social movements in challenging fundamental assumptions about development and environmental protection. These movements:
- Contest the dominance of market-based environmental solutions
- Advocate for rights of nature and ecosystem protections
- Challenge resource extraction priorities in both North and South
- Provide alternative visions of human-environment relationships
Practical Implications for Environmental Lawyers and Policymakers
Rethinking Legal Practice
For environmental lawyers, Locating Nature Making and Unmaking International Law suggests several important shifts in approach:
- Systems thinking: Understanding environmental problems as symptoms of deeper structural issues rather than technical challenges
- Critical analysis: Questioning fundamental assumptions about sovereignty, development, and human rights
- Interdisciplinary collaboration: Working with anthropologists, political ecologists, and indigenous knowledge holders
- Movement alliance: Supporting grassroots environmental justice movements challenging extractive industries
Policy Innovation
Policymakers inspired by Locating Nature Making and Unmaking International Law might explore:
- Earth system law: Developing legal frameworks based on planetary boundary science
- Wellbeing economics: Moving beyond GDP toward measures of ecological and social health
- Participatory governance: Creating meaningful roles for affected communities in environmental decision-making
- Rights of nature legislation: Recognizing ecosystems as legal persons with enforceable rights
Frequently Asked Questions About Locating Nature Making and Unmaking International Law
What does “Locating Nature Making and Unmaking International Law” mean?
“Locating Nature Making and Unmaking International Law” refers to a critical analysis of how concepts of nature have shaped the development of international law, and how international law has, in turn, shaped harmful relationships with the natural environment. The “making” refers to how particular understandings of nature were foundational to creating international legal concepts, while “unmaking” refers to the need to deconstruct these concepts to enable meaningful environmental protection.
Why has international environmental law failed according to this analysis?
According to Locating Nature Making and Unmaking International Law, international environmental law has failed because it operates within the same conceptual framework that drives ecological degradation. Rather than challenging fundamental assumptions about sovereignty, development, and human-nature relationships, environmental law tries to manage ecological harm through technical solutions while maintaining the structural causes of environmental destruction.
How does sovereignty relate to environmental problems in this framework?
Locating Nature Making and Unmaking International Law shows that modern sovereignty is based on the capacity to productively control nature. This creates incentives for resource extraction, makes transboundary environmental cooperation difficult, and prioritizes state interests over ecosystem integrity. The principle of permanent sovereignty over natural resources, while designed to protect developing nations, actually reinforces these problems.
What alternatives does this analysis suggest?
The Locating Nature Making and Unmaking International Law analysis points toward several alternatives: rights of nature frameworks that recognize ecosystems as legal subjects; limits to growth that acknowledge ecological boundaries; integration of indigenous legal traditions; and fundamental reconstruction of international legal concepts around Earth community membership rather than human dominance.
Is this analysis relevant to climate change specifically?
Yes, Locating Nature Making and Unmaking International Law is highly relevant to climate change. It explains why climate agreements like the Paris Agreement struggle with implementation – they operate within frameworks that prioritize economic growth and national sovereignty over planetary stability. The analysis suggests that effective climate action requires fundamental transformation of international law’s basic concepts.
How does this relate to global environmental governance?
Locating Nature Making and Unmaking International Law reveals that current global environmental governance systems are structured in ways that systematically reinforce ecological harm. Environmental governance operates within state-based frameworks that prioritize human welfare and economic development over ecosystem integrity, making meaningful environmental protection nearly impossible.
What role do developing countries play in this analysis?
The analysis is sympathetic to developing country concerns about environmental colonialism – the tendency of wealthy nations to impose environmental restrictions after benefiting from resource extraction. However, Locating Nature Making and Unmaking International Law also shows how north-south divisions can obscure the fundamental structural problems that affect all nations within the current international legal framework.
Can this analysis be applied to specific environmental problems?
Yes, Locating Nature Making and Unmaking International Law can be applied to specific issues like deforestation, biodiversity loss, ocean pollution, and climate change. In each case, the analysis reveals how international legal frameworks that appear to protect the environment actually enable continued degradation through their emphasis on state sovereignty, economic development, and anthropocentric values.
What does this mean for environmental law education?
Locating Nature Making and Unmaking International Law suggests that environmental law education should include critical analysis of international law’s foundational concepts. Students should understand how sovereignty, development, property, and human rights have been shaped by particular relationships with nature, and how these concepts continue to drive environmental degradation.
How does this analysis relate to indigenous rights?
The analysis strongly supports indigenous rights movements, particularly those asserting traditional relationships with land and resources. Locating Nature Making and Unmaking International Law shows how colonial impositions of European property concepts disrupted sustainable indigenous practices and how current international law continues to prioritize extractive over relational approaches to nature.
The Urgency of Locating Nature Making and Unmaking International Law
The analysis of Locating Nature Making and Unmaking International Law provides a sobering but essential critique of international environmental law’s limitations. Rather than offering false hope through technical solutions, it reveals the deep structural changes necessary for meaningful environmental protection.
As we face accelerating climate change, biodiversity collapse, and ecosystem degradation, this analysis becomes increasingly urgent. The continued failure of international environmental agreements despite their proliferation confirms that the problem lies not in inadequate environmental frameworks but in the fundamental assumptions underlying international law itself.
Locating Nature Making and Unmaking International Law calls for nothing less than a reconstruction of international law’s basic concepts around ecological rather than anthropocentric principles. While this may seem impossibly ambitious, the accelerating pace of environmental crisis suggests that such fundamental transformation may be our only hope for a livable future.
The choice before us is clear: continue with incremental reforms within systems designed for resource extraction and economic growth, or embrace the radical transformation that Locating Nature Making and Unmaking International Law reveals to be necessary. Our planet’s future may well depend on our willingness to undertake this crucial “unmaking” and reconstruction of international law.
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