Course Recording:
Course Description:
Who belongs to communities of justice in the Anthropocene? While Western and non-Western traditions alike have afforded legal or moral recognition primarily to humans and secondarily to some nonhuman entities under limited conditions, arrival of the Anthropocene suggests a new approach is needed in order to address the range and origins of injustices occurring within the Earth system. This presentation takes stock of theory and practice pertaining to the rights of artificial intelligence, animals, and nature in order to develop a framework capable of assessing the extent to which nonhumans might be eligible for rights. This framework derives inspiration from contemporary paradigm shifts observed across several disciplines, including the Anthropocene turn in philosophy, the materialist turn in the humanities and social sciences, the ontological turn in environmental law, the relational turn in ethics, and the relational turn in robotics. The purpose here is to inspire attendees to think more holistically and critically about how all entities, natural and artefactual, contribute to the collective project of worlding. Together we can create a posthuman ecology that is more inclusive, compassionate, and resilient for all.
Recommended Readings:
Arvidsson, M. (2020). The swarm that we already are: artificially intelligent (AI) swarming ‘insect drones’, targeting and international humanitarian law in a posthuman ecology. Journal of Human Rights and the Environment. 11(1): 114-137.
Butler, J. (2021). Creating an Inhabitable World for Humans Means Dismantling Rigid Forms of Individuality. Time.
Gellers, J.C. (2020). Earth System Law and the Legal Status of Nonhumans in the Anthropocene. Earth System Governance. 7: 100083.
Lewis, J. E., Arista, N., Pechawis, A., & Kite, S. (2018). Making Kin with the Machines. Journal of Design and Science, 3, 5.
Tschakert, P. (2020). More-than-human Solidarity and Multispecies Justice in the Climate Crisis. Environmental Politics.
Instructor:
Josh Gellers, PhD, LEED Green Associate, is an Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science and Public Administration at the University of North Florida, Research Fellow of the Earth System Governance Project, and Core Team Member of the Global Network for Human Rights and the Environment. He was also a U.S. Fulbright Scholar to Sri Lanka. Josh’s research focuses on environmental politics, human rights, and technology. His work has appeared in numerous peer-reviewed journals and cited in seven UN reports. Josh runs the Enviro Rights Map, a free Google Maps-based website that catalogs constitutional environmental rights throughout the world. He is the author of The Global Emergence of Constitutional Environmental Rights (Routledge 2017) and Rights for Robots: Artificial Intelligence, Animal and Environmental Law (Routledge 2020).
Discussant:
Matilda Arvidsson, BA, LLM, LLD, has studied law in Lund, Jerusalem and Khartoum. She completed her LLD in international law at the Faculty of Law, Lund University, from where she also holds a LLM in jurisprudence and a BA in political science. Her research interests are interdisciplinary and include law and theory, migration law, international and public law, humanitarian law, posthumanism and technology, artificial intelligence (AI), as well as the embodiment of law in its various forms and in inter-species relations. She has been invited to talk about her research in various institutions around the world, most recently at the University of Technology Sydney, Australia; Western Sydney University, Australia; Kent Law School, Canterbury, UK; La Trobe Law School, Melbourne, Australia; Melbourne Law School, Australia, Uppsala University and Copenhagen University. In 2019 she recived the Bernadotte program stipend from The Royal Swedish Academy of Letters, History and Antiquities.
