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

本项目审查一种实验性的法律的理论，该理论将环境实体界定为法律的主体，以便裁定土地保有权和其他资源争端。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。新的学说提出了法律处理环境的方式的巨大转变。这项研究着眼于一个社会法律的背景下，法律的专家正在努力找出如何执行一项法律，声称河流是一个法律的主体。在培训学生科学数据收集和分析方法方面，该研究项目将开发系统，以更好地了解自然权利框架如何改变人类与环境的关系。该项目还扩大了代表性不足的群体对科学的参与。这个博士研究项目探讨了强调自然权利学说的法律的范式对改变人类与环境系统之间的社会法律关系的影响。为了实施这个项目，研究人员采用了双管齐下的方法。一方面，研究者们正在对拥有自然法成文权的法官进行一系列的标准化访谈。另一方面，研究人员正在使用半结构化的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律的代表。这项研究设计有助于研究人员从政策执行的实践方面以及政策概念化的理论方面来理解自然权利。在学术层面上，该项目有助于在法律的人类学和社会法学研究的理论有关的官僚机构在社会生活中的作用。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并已被认为是值得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的支持。

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.