Interconnected Law
A short overview of the Interconnected Law approach by Alex May
Our legal system lies at the root of many of our problems. It must be transformed as part of the solution.
Introduction and context - Politically and socially, we face a rising tide of crises. Social bonds are breaking down, with political polarisation, growing economic inequality and rising far-right politics in the UK. We also face serious ecological crises, of which climate change is the most prominent, and we are living far beyond what is sustainable. Responding to these entangled crises, Interconnected Law is a new legal paradigm (designed for a range of actors) in which law should cultivate harmonious socio-ecological relations.
The founding conceptions are a relational worldview, social ecology, and earth jurisprudence. This article offers a very short overview, organised in three parts: (1) worldview and meta-paradigm; (2) descriptive legal theory; and (3) normative legal theory.
Part 1: Worldview and meta-paradigm
General definition of worldview and meta-paradigm
A paradigm is a conceptual framework for how we interpret and make sense of the world, individually and collectively. Academics and authors Fritjof Capra and Pier Luigi Luisi describe a social paradigm as “a constellation of concepts, values, perceptions and practices shared by a community, which forms a particular vision of reality that is the basis of the way the community organizes itself” . A worldview is broader and looser - referring to how a person, community, society, or institution conceptualises the world. Capra and Luisi discuss the meta-paradigms which pervade the paradigms of many knowledge disciplines. One meta-paradigm is described as “rationalist” or “mechanistic”, the other “systemic or holistic”. The former breaks things into parts and sees the world as a machine. The latter focuses on connections and relationships.
Interconnected Law’s paradigm and worldview
The dominant paradigm in legal thinking is flawed because it is reductionist - we need a holistic alternative which rejects individualism, human-nature separation, and the distinction of social and ecological relationships. Responsively, Interconnected Law represents a paradigmatic shift to see the world as inherently relational
The approach is rooted in a worldview that the world is socio-ecological relations: humans, society, and nature are interconnected in dense global networks of socio-ecological relations. We are also part of communities and municipalities embedded in nature. Let’s call this ‘society’ and recognise that it is part of nature. From here, mentions of social or ecological relations refer to socio-ecological relations.
The relational world is a founding conception of interconnected law.
Jennifer Nedelsky’s book ‘Law’s Relations’ underpins Interconnected Law’s worldview. Nedelsky critiques the dominant liberal approach to law, and constitutional and human rights, which sees humans as discrete and freestanding. An alternative relational framework sees the significance of social relations, and that there is no ‘bounded self’. This is “a shift in emphasis that moves relationships from the periphery to the centre of legal and political thought and practice” . Relationships, in this worldview, may be intimate, social, familial, or neighborly. We also have economic relationships with employers, businesses, and corporations; political relationships with representatives and governance systems; and ecological relationships with local environments, ecosystems, places food is grown, climatic conditions, and the whole planet.
Relationships between people and their social environment are reciprocal as each remakes the other. In short, humans are relational beings - our relations are part of us and we are part of them. Nedelsky sees humans embedded in networks of relations, and autonomy as determined by these relations. She makes a distinction between the individuals’ relationships and the broader relational social structures which exist as a whole of them: An oppressive social structure such as racism is experienced personally, and as a larger social structure.
Nedelsky recognises that “In an optimal relational approach, our place in the ecology of earth would be recognized as a relationship that shapes and is shaped by all others.” . So, while she gives attachment points, her relational worldview lacks an ecological dimension and ecological thinking is not woven into the conception of the relational self. This amendment is central to Interconnected Law, an approach premised on the reality that nature is not an other, but something we are part of. We are ecologically interconnected in the conditions for human life and in our effects into the non-human world. Hence, social ecology is integrated to ‘ecologise’ the framework in ‘Law’s Relations’.
Social Ecology forms the backdrop, the political theory and values, of Interconnected Law.
The concept of Social Ecology, formulated by Murray Bookchin in the late 1960s, inverts anthropocentrism, viewing society as within nature. Bookchin’s core argument is that ecological destruction is part of social domination between humans and (almost) all “environmental” issues are rooted in social relations. Given that ecological and social relationships cannot be separated, addressing ecological destruction must also address social domination, and vice versa. Ecological destruction is enmeshed in many aspects of society, relations and human activity. Bookchin wrote about the political project of building a free society, not legal theory, so Interconnected Law uses his work as a political foundation for a legal theory to grow out of. Social Ecology provides a theoretical framework to integrate existing socio-relational and ecological approaches within legal theory. Once the interconnection of the social and ecological are recognised, it becomes clear that realising human rights, and the right to a healthy environment, requires ecological integrity, which depends on sustainable social relations. A socio-ecologically holistic approach to law therefore allows for an ecocentric conception of human rights law, including the Rights of Nature.
Distinguishing Narrow and Broad Social Ecology
As a term, ‘Social Ecology’ contains a range of scopes of meaning. Within Bookchin’s work, therefore, I distinguish ‘narrow’ social ecology as Bookchin's philosophy of nature and conceptual framework for understanding the relationship between society and ecology, and ‘broad’ social ecology which includes Bookchin’s political project of what to do about this. The purpose is to clarify which elements I take as foundational in my project and what I see as political commitments beyond my legal theory. My project needs a conceptual foundation, a theory of nature and society, and Bookchin’s Social Ecology, in the narrow sense, is my main substantive foundation to think about law. To be clear, this is a distinction which I am creating. These are not normal uses of the terms nor does Bookchin make this distinction. My legal theory project is distinct from Bookchin’s. It is not taking a social ecology project to law, but developing a socio-ecologically holistic approach to legal theory. This is an ‘ecologised’ extension of Nedelsky’s thinking in ‘Law’s Relations’, seeing the world as socio-ecological.
As stated, Bookchin’s work includes an analysis of existing problems in society; a conceptual framework for these problems; a critique of existing philosophy (or more generally, conceptual thinking); a normative positive vision for society; and political strategy to get there. I want to take the conceptual framework and the critique of existing philosophy, while not taking the broad political analysis and strategy or positive social vision. This quote illustrates the meaning of ‘broad Social Ecology’: “Social ecology is an appeal not only for moral regeneration but, and above all, for social reconstruction along ecological lines.” The reconstruction described is both philosophical and social, a conceptual foundation and a political project.
Part 2: Descriptive Legal Theory: ‘Law in a socio-ecological world’.
Interconnected Law offers a descriptive legal theory of how law influences and structures socio-ecological relations. This is a formal theory (a ‘morally neutral’ case about the shape of something instead of its substance or morality) of what law does, not what it should do. The formal argument for interconnected law is: legal systems are generally based on a mistaken idea of atomised individuals which doesn’t account for the complex network of relations that make up society. Therefore, in a formal sense, law would be a better “tool” if it were based on realities of interconnectivity and relationality. This argument means that even if you don’t agree with my values, principles, analysis and application, there is still something in Interconnected Law for you.
What does law do? Law is a social institution of power, but it is more than a top-down state power or governance system. Our legal system is an interwoven part of our society and economy. It structures and influences human activity and relations, through gentle reproduction of relational patterns and firm enforcement of particular relational structures. As such, the law has a significant role in constituting society, giving us frameworks to interpret ourselves and the world. For instance, our legal systems designate land, animals, and ecosystems as objects which humans are empowered to destroy and plunder. In doing so, our legal system codifies a division between humans and nature and perpetuates extractive activities by reinforcing the socio-cultural normof human separation from nature. As another example, the law takes individual (and corporate) rights as the primary building block. This reproduces individualistic conceptions of society. We see freedom as something we want for ourselves, not something created together.
Though we often name politics, society, culture, economics and even art as separate domains, these are all interwoven, and law is a pervasive part of this jumble of human activity. Despite that, law has mostly faded into the background, seen as a neutral and technical social system instead of a powerful influence in our way of life. To better reflect the world, Law should take complex interconnection as its basis, becoming a more conscious and active part of the web of relationships it already exists within, influences, and structures. These interconnected relations can be empowering and sustaining, or harmful and destructive. Law, as part of this, can be used to oppress people or to liberate them. To be clear, the argument is not that law should be used to influence these relationships, and nor is it that law is the only way we should do this. Instead, in the relational understanding, the law already influences relationships. This descriptive, value-neutral, theory is useful for anyone working with or about law, as it is about law as an instrument. That said, the approach is incomplete until we add a value-based framework for what law should do.
Part 3: Normative Legal Theory
3a. General Legal Theory – Interconnected Law
Interconnected Law creates a normative, value-based, framework in which law should be used as a tool with a goal to make socio-ecological relations more just, harmonious, and empowering as part of a Whole Earth Community. To determine what is just and harmonious, Interconnected takes a series of normative values as its foundation. These include, ecological ethics in the form of earth jurisprudence; ethics of care; and social justice ideas including broad social ecology, communitarianism, collective anarchism, and liberation politics. Combining the functional theory of law in a socio-ecological world with these values creates a full legal theory.
Changing Law’s Role in Society
Instead of seeing law as protecting individual negative liberty, I see law as mediating interwoven relations in society. Law therefore ought to structure relationships justly and ultimately better realise human freedom by protecting and empowering people. For instance, seeing law as having an active role to play in the network of relations suggests a more active role for the judiciary than is currently the case. If we acknowledge that adjudicating and resolving cases includes moral and political reasoning, and that law is about strengthening relations, then this ought not be done solely technocratically by judges. An interconnected approach would include ideas such as alternative dispute resolution, community engagement in resolving conflicts, and more non-judicial involvement in decision making such as juries, citizens assemblies and stakeholder representatives.
Talking of a ‘changing role’ for law in society, it is worth saying this approach is designed for people in a western liberal capitalist democracy, specifically the UK and USA. Interconnected Law is a development from within, recognising our cultural and historical conditions and moving from where we are into a better tomorrow. It draws out of the existing developments from science, queer and feminist theories, political currents and romantic approaches to nature within our culture. In short: it is neither a universal idea about law nor a vision of the final goal of law, but one for western liberal capitalist societies now and for the near future.
What is just and harmonious?
Alone, the aim for law to create more just and harmonious socio ecological relations would be too vague. Hence, the approach is guided by an ‘interconnected’ paradigm of normative theories of justice including earth jurisprudence, ethics of care, and social justice approaches. The latter includes broad social ecology, communitarianism, collective anarchism, and liberatory politics. Broadly, these concepts and their value-systems can be adapted for a range of contexts and come under an umbrella of ‘relations of freedom’. See below for a brief explanation of the social justice ideas which give Interconnected Law its normative substance, painting a picture of what broadly speaking the approach is given normative substance by social justice ideas including equality, autonomy (people should have control over, and think about, their lives collectively, not individually), democracy (which should be based on multi-level engagement).
Law can be part of reproducing the neoliberal vision of individuals in society who only deserve things through productive economic activity. Alternatively, with a relational approach law could reproduce a more collective vision of society, such as one in which everyone is entitled to various guarantees from the state, contributed to by all via compulsory taxation. These ideas are not just legal, but law is certainly a necessary part of (re)constituting how we see ourselves and each other. When we think relationally, we can see law’s pervasiveness - transcending the Western tendency to focus on designation of illegality, imposed obligations, threats of imprisonment and financial sanctions. Often, the possibility of such a sanction, via lawsuits or prosecution, is enough for people to comply. In many situations people in Western liberal democracies accept law as their guide because they think it is the right thing to do - indicating law’s soft power.
3b. Interconnected Law, in Specific Areas
General Earth Jurisprudence legal transformation
Earth Jurisprudence (EJ) is the most developed ecological approach to law and is thereby the best to draw from to develop my socio-ecologically holistic approach to law. Earth Jurisprudence is a response to current legal systems which conceptualise humans as separate from the rest of nature: nature is insufficiently protected and features primarily as property without inherent values or legal subjecthood. Earth Jurisprudence goes beyond a critique that environmental law has failed to prevent ecological damage and degradation, saying that law facilitates the destruction. Ecological destruction is not just an economic, political or cultural problem with law as a neutral medium. In Cormac Cullinan’s words: “one of the primary causes of environmental destruction is the fact that our governance systems are designed to perpetuate human domination of Nature, instead of fostering mutually beneficial relationships between humans and the other members of the Earth community.‘
Cullinan proposes that the legal system should work to secure ecological integrity and sustainable relationships between humans and ecological systems by including aspects of (non-human) nature in the legal system as rights subjects. This concept is described as ‘Nature’s Rights’ or, more commonly, ‘Rights of Nature’ (RoN). RoN are being implemented around the world, in constitutions, legislation and case law in countries including Ecuador, Bolivia, New Zealand, India and North America. The UN’s Harmony with Nature programme has also championed the idea, and it continues to gain traction. In the UK, if we are serious about nature recovery, ecosystems should be given legal status and the ability to have legal challenges brought on their behalf. This may seem a left-of-field proposal, yet scientists are clear that we need radical and far-reaching transformations.
Generative critique of Rights of Nature
Earth Jurisprudence and RoN remain partial as they lack meaningful consideration of social justice, political dynamics, and just inter-human relations. They are generally focussed on moral, cultural, and spiritual transformation. Therefore we need a broader approach to encompass the interconnectivity of socio-ecological relations. Interconnected Law is intended to help us move towards societies where humans live in harmony with the rest of nature and have sustainable relations which reflect the particular social context. For the RoN this means that we must seek democratic and decentralised, not bureaucratic, methods of implementation.
To challenge the legal status quo for corporations to cause severe ecological harm, we must also recognise the links with the way that it is normal for them to cause social harm. Often, it is the same action which leads to both harms: a chemical spill will both harm people who live nearby and cause wider ecological harm. These were perhaps justified by the false assumptions that (a) anything people pay for is socially beneficial, and that (b) regulation can limit harmful corporate activity. Thus, RoN based critique of law’s role in ecological destruction must critique law’s role in social domination, and the social forces driving ecological destruction, to provide a full picture and try to transform society away from destruction and domination. RoN advocates must learn from critical approaches to human rights for their principles to develop within a broader vision for an ecological society. This generative critique comes from an understanding that we can only transform a (legal) system by tackling its entirety. Rights of Nature is merely one part of the transformation of law that we need.
Human rights theory and practice: Ecologising human rights
Traditional scholarship on human rights and human rights law are based on an abstracted individual subject. Critical scholarship has challenged this but lacks significant ecological dimensions. In the last decade, the Right to a Healthy Environment has been recognised by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights and the UN General Assembly, though an overarching ecological approach to human rights remains undeveloped. Interconnected Law’s holistic approach, seeing the rights subject as socio-ecologically embedded, allows human rights, ecological integrity, and the RoN to exist in harmony instead of in contention (Digno Montalvan Zambrano 2021). In this sense, Interconnected Law can ‘ecologise’ human rights through relationality, A word of caution - It is possible to have an approach to law which includes relations with the environment, recognising that humans are ecological beings which depend on various relations with our environment to survive and thrive, which remains anthropocentric in value and reduces the natural world to serve humans. RoN can be justified to secure human survival which depends on the integrity of ecosystems and planetary systems.
3c. Law in Specific Areas
At this stage, Interconnected Law exists primarily as a conceptualisation of law’s role in our society and how it should be. While this is not a detailed blueprint, it is helpful to share some sketches of how things might be in a legal system based on this paradigm. For myriad policy areas and legal domains, the approach’s socio-ecologial paradigm would start by understanding the conditions and relations at play, mapping how they should be transformed to be more just, balanced and harmonious, and finding how law can be part of this. These transformations may also require changes to political power, social relations and cultural norms. As such, we should look at law as both a catalyst to change broader norms and something which itself needs transforming.
In general, law’s goal should be to improve the web of relations we live in instead of trying to achieve goals via abstracted individual rights. When we want to realise freedom, for example, we should be looking to create and cultivate relations that empower people and foster freedom. Freedom should be talked about in terms of conditions and relations instead of trying to crudely manifest freedom individually. Similarly, sustainability policies and law should be formed with a relational lens: when we talk about ecological sustainability, that is a relational question between actors and Nature at all levels: individuals, corporations, geographic areas, communities, nations and economic systems.
For property law, an interconnected approach would find the relational context of the property and ask what it would mean for these relationships to be just. For many things, such as ecosystems, ownership would be transformed to something more akin to ‘stewardship’, with responsibilities attached to the power of ownership. Ownership of land containing habitats could have the legal responsibility that ecological health is maintained. Perhaps someone who owns a house could have a responsibility to the local community that it is used in the public interest, which could be determined by a democratically-created policy like a council’s housing strategy. This might require a landlord to rent to a family instead of converting their property into flats, or it could mean that somebody has to sell their second home to somebody in need of a first home.
Corporate law has the same fundamental problem as our general approach to liberty: it creates power without responsibilities. Regulation of corporate activity currently has piecemeal limits of corporate conduct, such as specific pollution control regimes or a requirement to publish a statement about addressing modern slavery. An interconnected approach would be more transformative, seeking to fundamentally change this dynamic. Corporate law could be approached by mapping out the different relationships and impacts that corporations have and asking what legal changes are needed for these relationships to be just. The idea of a ‘triple bottom line’, where a company measures social and environmental as well as financial performance, could become a legal framework instead of a voluntary approach. This would turn the different impacts that businesses can have into legal duties that become parameters for legitimate business activity. A company could be required to benefit society, and communities impacted by its operations. It could be required to be responsible for respecting and realising human rights in its supply chain; being fair to its employees; and having a positive impact on other aspects of Nature. This would be comparable to the ‘duty of care’ that exists in tort law, but as well as being broader for who is owed such a duty, it would go beyond negative responsibility to avoid or compensate for certain harms and includes positive responsibilities too.
Criminal law: The liberal approach to crime sees an individual who has committed a bad act and needs to be punished and rehabilitated. It does not consider relational context, and therefore focuses on policing crime in an abstracted way. Instead, we should situate the ‘crime’, the perpetrator and the harm caused in its relational context. Looking at socio-economic causes of crime and the ‘public health’ approach is part of a relational approach to the context of why people commit crimes. The ‘public health’ description is often described as ‘treating violence like an infectious disease’, but it could be described as being about circumstances and relationships which cause or reproduce violence. This looks at changing outcomes and makes more obvious behaviours which should be dealt with by means other than criminalisation, such as recreational drug use and rough sleeping. Grounding the discussion of crime in interconnection helps remind us to focus on what we are trying to achieve. We should not be aiming to catch criminals, or even for there to be an absence of crime, but to realise security and wellbeing. These are values which are best understood relationally: security is not about protecting ‘good people’ from ‘bad people’ but about relationships of security which give- conditions of safety.
Restorative justice and transformative justice are both relational approaches to criminal justice, shifting the focus away from an individual’s actions to instead look at relationships. Restorative justice focuses on the harm caused by particular behaviour(s) and tries to repair this damage, involving the perpetrator in a process which hopes to be positive for them too, as well as restoring the relationships with and in the community. Transformative justice is about changing the conditions which cause crime, rooted in transforming community infrastructure and relations into ones which produce safety and care instead of harm and isolation, and seeking to avoid reproducing violence and harm in this response.
To summarise…
Interconnected Law provides a framework for others to apply a socio-ecological legal paradigm to specific policy areas or legal domains. This is a neutral framework, based on how law works and how to better use law, with the normative values and goals of different actors.The idea is not that law alone can save us. Our law should shift to looking at relationships, such as between humans and their ecosystems, instead of just being about individual rights and rights-claims. This approach has the potential to help change how we relate to each other, seeing ourselves collectively instead of individually. Interconnected Law is a vision for how law itself should be transformed to address injustices. The argument is certainly not that law should be the main way we try to change society, but that law must itself be part of the broader political and social transformations, and a part which has so far been overlooked. I hope that Interconnected Law will be useful to a range of social movements as we seek to realise better worlds. This is a radical approach to law, and I anticipate that many will respond by saying ‘it’s a nice idea, but that isn’t what law is’. My response to that is: this is what the law could be, and radical is what is needed.
Alex May
Alex May is a British legal theorist and researcher who started a PhD at Birkbeck University in 2022. Prior, Alex completed a law undergraduate at Oxford University and an LLM at the London School of Economics. Alex wrote his dissertation about Earth Jurisprudence and human rights law - planting the seeds of Interconnected Law. Mapping ideas for his dissertation, Alex realised what he envisioned was (at least) a PhD scale project. This crystallised a wish to work on ideas about law and ways to communicate them to change our legal system and the wider world.
Having identified a distinct part of this thinking to cover in the Masters dissertation, Alex channelled the larger vision into Interconnected Law as a side project in the subsequent 5 years. The PhD at Birkbeck allowed Alex to take on Interconnected Law as his core focus.
Due to long term illness, Alex has been unable to complete the PhD as intended and will be entering medical retirement. This ‘Short Overview’ is part of a combination of efforts to bring the most developed form of the Interconnected Law approach into the world,.
To learn more about Alex, and the Interconnected Law approach, go to interconnectedlaw.com. Here you will find an archive of draft PhD notes, and an array of past blogs and articles charting the development of Interconnected Law and its underpinning principles.
