[Full Length] Ecocentric Law — with Abhayraj Naik

“This paradigmatic shift, the possibility of a new worldview, is what makes thinking about and fighting for the Rights of Nature worthwhile.”

- Abhayraj Naik

SYNOPSIS:

Today I’m joined by Abhayraj Naik, a lawyer and activist-academic who teaches interdisciplinary courses on climate, environment, justice, law, policy, and research methods in universities across India. We discuss the trajectory of the Rights of Nature in India, and how this legal approach differentiates itself from other forms of environmental law.

Abhayraj shares why the Rights of Nature can catalyse entirely new world views on the human relationship to nature, and the thrilling, often philosophical, new sets of questions they unleash (who gets to speak on behalf of nature? How might one cross examine nature?). We engage in a fun thought experiment on who should at the table when creating representation for natural beings, the skills required to implement such laws, the Rights of the River Ganga, and how the RON movement intersects with other religious or indigenous cultural traditions.

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GUEST BIO:

Abhayraj Naik is a lawyer, activist-academic, community builder, and design hacker for transformative change. At Azim Premji University, he teaches interdisciplinary courses on climate, environment, justice, law, policy, and research methods at a number of universities across India. He has published widely on issues in environmental law and policy, regulation theory and implementation, climate change, mobility rights, social justice. He holds degrees from the National Law School of India University and Yale Law School.

QUOTES:

• This paradigmatic shift, the possibility of a new worldview, is what makes thinking about and fighting for the Rights of Nature worthwhile.

• Once you have the Rights of Nature featured in a legal context, you get to tricky questions such as: How does one know what nature wants in this context? How does one find a voice for nature who is a legitimate representative? How can I trust what this representative of nature says when they are very much a human being like all of us? How might one cross examine nature?

• As a lawyer I constantly have these very fantastical visions of a river flowing in through a courtroom and saying things to the judge.

• That's the problem with law. It's always playing catch up with the rich, dense, textured nature of reality.

• The ones who might best know how a river feels are those who have spent time in the river, or those who as per their worldview believe they are the river, that they are the kit and kin of the river.

• I have a sense of discomfort with any kind of very monolithic romanticization of India and its spirituality.

SHOW NOTES

• Law’s Nature paper

• Initiative for Climate Action 

• Kalpavriksh and the larger Vikalp Sangam network  (great work in the rights of nature space in India, my collaborators Shrishtee Bajpai and Ashish Kothari in particular focus on this there)

• Inner Climate Academy 

• Rights of Rivers South Asia Alliance

• Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature

• People’s science movement from state of Kerala

• Ecocide

LINKS:

RIGHTS OF NATURE AND ECOCENTRIC LAW

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