Planetary Futures

 
 

Planetary awareness -- of the Earth's physical systems as well as their histories and relations to near and distant space -- has become central to thought and action about current and future human activities and their proper regulation. Existing capacities of 'national' law-making and self-government, 'international' legal coordination and alignment on extra-national spaces and effects, and 'global' management of flows, can be mobilized and oriented toward 'planetary' futures. Law is much involved in enabling exploitation and excess, and also in exploration and innovation -- but it can also be a means for setting and enforcing guides and limits. Laws and institutions are being built to respond -- in fragmented ways -- to emergent risks from human impacts on the earth's climate, oceans, bio-systems, atmosphere, bio-geochemical cycles, and near space, and to human productions ranging from nuclear energy to plastics.

This project joins in efforts to rethink laws and institutions from multiple perspectives on planetary futures. It engages with scholars in anthropology, history, earths systems and space sciences, economics, and politics. The plurality of perspectives in this project brings work on international order; planetary data and modeling; oceans and space law; environmental law particularly with regard to planetary interventions; planning; the 'more than human rights' (MOTH) project, which also engages 'post-human' work among humanities scholars; participation of scholars in and from a range of developing countries; and an intensive focus on justice and distributive questions at different scales.

The project undertakes its own and collaborative research; teaches a weekly colloquium at NYU; convenes workshops in different countries; works with NYU Global sites; and organizes of co-sponsors major conferences. 

This project is based in the Guarini Institute for Global Legal Studies at NYU Law School, and conducted jointly with NYU Law's: Guarini Global Law & Tech, Guarini Center on Environmental, Energy & Land Use Law, Center for Human Rights and Global Justice, Institute for International Law and Justice.

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