Conclusion

Summary

This edited collection takes initial steps in a journey to understand better the relationship between international law and nature. We discover how international law systemically reproduces ecological injustice, and we explore the potential for equitable and sustainable disciplinary remakings. Specifically, we identify the inaccurate and harmful assumptions about nature underpinning conceptualizations of sovereignty, jurisdiction, territory, development, labour and human rights. To productively reimagine our discipline, we turn to Indigenous legal traditions, TWAIL, postcolonialism and decoloniality; to political ecology and ecocosmology; and to mythmaking, storytelling and song lines for inspiration. We hope other concepts and traditions will inform this ongoing endeavour. Even as international law continues to structure ecological harm, we see hope in growing transnational solidarity and alliances between the poor and subaltern classes that are challenging legal systems with better understandings of the relationship between nature and law.