Happy World Environment Day, 2025!
General - Events, notes, Law and Policy, Currently working ·Lately, I am beginning to realise the value of environmental advocacy as a way to challenge the notion of development within today’s highly industrialised society. As numerous environmentalists have formulated, we are entering a stage wherein we must reshift our goal posts to that of “degrowth” if we are to survive alongside our ecosystem of multi-species coexistence. Here are some of my key takeaways from the previous years of being a student of environmental laws:
-
Enforcement of legal norms is a real concern
Enforcement is where the law comes in contact with its subjects and the amount of violations here can say volumes about how seriously we as a society take the rules that *we made* to govern our own ecosystem. One may struggle to interact with the behemoth that is government machinery, regardless of whether one is part of the system that enforces it or is being governed by it. I wrote about this in my dissertation at PGDEL and have more writings to come.
-
Global systems for facilitating environmental growth
From effective to “efficacious” – if we are to apply jurisprudential learnings there is no shortage of literature to learn from. I found out in my work analysing the decisions published by the secretarial divisions of UNFCCC and Kyoto Protocol that it is possible to ascertain the economic rationale behind decisions. Similarly, if we were to look at the perceived “success” of the Kyoto Protocol (relative to other international agreements) a large part of it can be ascribed to the neatly divided administrative machinery in place at an international level.
-
Public information
Lastly, the availability of information on legal norms is an omnipresent deficiency in the Indian Legal System – ask anyone who has ever looked for a reliable source of law. This is not helpful for the mass of people who want to exercise their rights – as it often takes a lot to get the authorities to answer to the wake-up call that environmentalists around the world are resounding loudly.
As a parting thought, I want to add a comic panel written by the wonderful Rohan Chakravarty (“Green Humour” on Social Media and author of various books including “Green Humour for a Greying Planet”, “Bird Business” and many others (click here to access his linktree page) ) that encompasses what I have said in a format that makes this information widely accessible. Often what a comic strip or artwork can say about the burning planet we inhabit can be instructive for someone who is always a student in the journey of simplifying laws for the perceived effects they have on the society.