Doctoral Dissertation Research: How New Legal Doctrine Shapes Human-Environment Relations

本项目审查了一项试验性法律理论，该理论将环境实体界定为法律主体，以裁决土地保有权和其他资源纠纷。通常，法律将环境实体(如河流和山脉)视为所有权或保护对象。新的原则提出了法律处理环境的方式的戏剧性转变。这项研究着眼于一种社会法学背景，在这种背景下，法律专家正在努力弄清楚如何实施一项声称河流是法律主体的法律。在对学生进行科学数据收集和分析方法方面的培训中，该研究项目将开发系统，以便更好地了解自然权利框架如何改变人类与环境的关系。该项目还扩大了未被充分代表的群体在科学中的参与。这一博士研究项目探索了强调自然权利原则的法律范式对改变人类与环境系统之间的社会法律关系的影响。为了实施这一项目，研究人员采取了双管齐下的方法。一方面，研究人员正在对撰写了自然法权利的法官进行一系列标准化采访。另一方面，研究人员正在使用半结构化观察方法来研究一个委员会，该委员会已被司法授权为河流的法定代表人。这一研究设计有助于研究者从政策执行的实践方面以及政策概念化的更多理论方面来理解自然权利。在学术层面上，这个项目对法律人类学和社会法学中关于官僚机构在社会生活中的作用的理论研究做出了贡献。这个奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This project examines an experimental legal doctrine that defines environmental entities as legal subjects for the purposes of adjudicating land tenure and other resource disputes. Typically, laws treat environmental entities (such as rivers and mountains) as objects of ownership or protection. The new doctrine proposes a dramatic shift in the ways that laws deal with the environment. The research looks at a sociolegal context where legal experts are struggling to figure out how to implement a law that claims a river is a legal subject. In training a student in methods of scientific data collection and analysis, this research project would develop systems for better understanding of how the rights of nature framework is changing human relationships with the environment. The project also broadens the participation of underrepresented groups in science.This doctoral research project explores what implications a legal paradigm emphasizing the rights of nature doctrine has for transforming sociolegal relations between human and environmental systems. To carry out this project, the researchers are using a two-pronged approach. On the one hand, the researchers are conducting a series of standardized interviews with judges who have written rights of nature laws. On the other hand, the researchers are using semi-structured observational methods to study a committee that has been judicially mandated as the legal representative of a river. This research design helps the investigators to understand the rights of nature from both the practical side of policy implementation as well as the more theoretical side of policy conceptualization. On a scholarly level, this project contributes to theories in legal anthropological and sociolegal studies about the role of bureaucracy in social life.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.