Dr. Johan Horst on law and the environment between protection and design
There is - this is in nuce the thesis of this essay - a fundamental change in the self-understanding of international environmental law. The relationship between normativity and naturalness is changing from a dichotomous to a transformational one. Especially since the proclamation of the so-called Anthropocene, the focus is no longer on the protection of a nature perceived as natural and untouched, but on the question of normative criteria for shaping nature through law. This finds its paradigmatic expression in recent regulatory efforts to deal with geoengineering, especially solar radiation management (SRM). This no longer serves to protect a natural climate, but to create new climatic conditions. As a result, these measures call into question the previous self-understanding of international environmental law. This has consequences not least for the demands made on a correct and just law of the shaping of the natural. Using the regulation of SRM as an example, this essay traces the challenges of this change in the relationship between normativity and naturalness. The book can be accessed here.