Regenerative equality laws for a changing climate

Beth Goldblatt

doi:10.35295/osls.iisl.2623

Authors

Beth Goldblatt University of Technology Sydney/University of the Witwatersrand https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4687-3176

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.35295/osls.iisl.2623

Keywords:

equality, climate change, regeneration, gender equality, equality and discrimination law

Abstract

Climate change is both a consequence and a cause of inequality. Deep system recalibration is needed to repair the harms that the dominant economic system has inflicted on humans and the non-human world. This includes rethinking our legal frameworks and the way we address equality in law. The article draws on ecofeminist and Indigenous ideas of human/non-human relationality to consider how new equality frameworks might reorient the law in service of social and ecological transformation. It looks to the concept of regeneration to inform how we expand: the subject of the equality inquiry beyond the human; our conception of the harms being addressed through equality law; and the nature of the remedies we are seeking. It illustrates this reconceptualisation of equality law through two examples. The article is an invitation to others to begin to decentre humans in our legal conceptions and consider how to repurpose equality law towards regeneration.

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