Planetary Futures
Humans are planetary actors
Human technology, human activities, and rising human population and per capita needs and consumption are affecting conditions for life on earth. Existing laws and institutions deal in significant but fragmented ways with human impacts on the climate, ecosystems, oceans, and atmosphere, and to a very limited extent with other human-related phenomena ranging from biogeochemical cycles to plastics.
This project revisits and reimagine laws and institutions from a planetary perspective, i.e., taking more account of human impacts on Earth and other planets, distributive impacts of various technologies and governance regimes. Thinking “planetarily” does not imply an all-encompassing view; rather, it requires designing law and institutions with distributive justice at various spatial and temporal scales.
This project is an inter- and multi- disciplinary effort, with insights from anthropology, history, and earth system science. We are launching the project at the moment with concrete case studies examining human-natural systems interactions and a key focus on the role of technology. Our inaugural event will be held at 22 Washington Square North on April 29, 2024.
This project is co-conducted with Guarini Center on Environmental, Energy & Land Use Law, with support from Institute of International Law and Justice.
Project contact: Yirong Sun, ys5086@nyu.edu
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Earth and Space are viewed separately in many juridical structures, but in an integrated way in this project. Space infrastructures related to Earthare intensifying quickly, including observation satellites, GNSS, space telescopes, data relay and communication satellites. We investigate how space and earth governance now interact -- or might in future -- beyond the conventional division of the two domains. We launched a weekly NYU Law Space & Planetary Colloquium in Fall 2023, led by Professors Benedict Kingsbury and Katrina Wyman. More information on the first iteration of the colloquium, see link. The second iteration is Spring 2025.
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Scientific knowledge generation has been, if not the only factor, the dominant force behind the discovery of global environmental crises like ozone depletion and climate change. This branch of the planetary project explores climate and earth system modeling as a form of governance, with the lens of knowledge, power and representation.
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As the awareness of planetary emergency has grown, a variety of responses to those impacts have been raised. Human efforts start to “intervene“ the process of planetary change induced by human beings as a planetary force. Such intervention can be either technologically oriented, such as geo-engineering, and can also be policy oriented, such as policy-driven energy transition.
Law and governance issues are involved -- sometimes fundamentally -- at all levels in the consideration, organization, or prohibition of such interventions. They are also significant in the articulation of rights and justice agendas and legal claims relating to planetary life and futures. Professor Cesar Rodriguez-Garavito leads the Climate Litigation Accelerator (CLX) for litigating the climate emergency, as well as the More Than Human Rights (MOTH) Project for thinking planetary futures that sustains all beings.
