Peter Burdon is an Associate Professor at the Adelaide Law School. Phone: +61 8 8313 4446 Address: Adelaide Law School University of Adelaide Adelaide, SA 5005
The Anthropocene is a term described by Earth Systems Science to capture the recent rupture in th... more The Anthropocene is a term described by Earth Systems Science to capture the recent rupture in the history of the Earth where human action has acquired the power to alter the Earth System as a whole. While normative conclusions cannot be logically derived from this descriptive fact, this paper argues that law and philosophy ought to develop responses that are ordered around human beings. Rather than arguing for legal rights or extending rights to nature, this paper focuses on obligations. Drawing on Hans Jonas, it argues that obligations are a more appropriate tool for cultivating human plurality, restraining human action and protecting future generations.
The Anthropocene is a term described by Earth Systems Science to capture the recent rupture in th... more The Anthropocene is a term described by Earth Systems Science to capture the recent rupture in the history of the Earth where human action has acquired the power to alter the Earth System as a whole. While normative conclusions cannot be logically derived from this descriptive fact, this paper argues that law and philosophy ought to develop responses that are ordered around human beings. Rather than arguing for legal rights or extending rights to nature, this paper focuses on obligations. Drawing on Hans Jonas, it argues that obligations are a more appropriate tool for cultivating human plurality, restraining human action and protecting future generations.
Environmental destruction and climate change are driving new waves of environmental activism. In ... more Environmental destruction and climate change are driving new waves of environmental activism. In response, governments in several Australian states have enacted legislation designed to penalise and silence political protest. This article analyses Tasmania’s anti-protest laws and considers how the United Nations and scholars have reacted to them. We argue that protest suppression laws such as these reflect a neoliberal rationality which conceptualises society in market terms. This mode of thinking perceives protest as market interference rather than civic participation. Accordingly, anti-protest laws seek to secure the rights and interests of corporations to unimpeded market access
In Anthony J Nocella II and Erik Juergensmeyer, eds. Fighting Academic Repression and Neoliberal ... more In Anthony J Nocella II and Erik Juergensmeyer, eds. Fighting Academic Repression and Neoliberal Education: Resistance, Reclaiming, Organizing, and Black Lives Matter in Education (New York, United States of America: Peter Lang, 2017) 33–45.
To date, most authors writing Wild Law have focused on philosophy or proposing alternative or ide... more To date, most authors writing Wild Law have focused on philosophy or proposing alternative or ideallaws. In contrast, this article seeks to understand why legal and governance systems around the worldhave failed to respond to the climate crisis. It also explores the material conditions necessary forenacting a broad social change project. The objective of the article is to initiate a conversation withadvocates of Wild Law about how we can move beyond theory and engage in a collaborative projectof ethical praxis.
In this essay, we offer a modem legal reading of Hannah Arendt's classicbook, Eichmann in Jerusal... more In this essay, we offer a modem legal reading of Hannah Arendt's classicbook, Eichmann in Jerusalem. First we provide a brief account ofhow Arendtcame to write Eichmann in Jerusalem and explain her central argumentsand observations. We then consider the contemporary relevance of Arendt'swork to us as legal academics engaged with a variety of problems arisingfrom our times. We consider Arendt's writing of Eichmann in Jerusalem as a study in intellectual courage and academic integrity, as an importantexample of accessible political theory, as challenging the academic to engagein participatory action, and as informing our thinking about judgement whenwe engage in criminal law reform. Finally, we consider the role of Arendt'smoral judgement for those within government today and how it defendsand informs judgement of the modem bureaucrat at a time of heightenedgovernment secrecy.
The authors map the history of important changes in Australian legal education over the past 20 y... more The authors map the history of important changes in Australian legal education over the past 20 years, with a focus on the influence of the profession on legal education. Using Thornton's account of contemporary law schools 'jettisoning the critical' in the quest for market success as a stepping off point, they put forward a vision of what a legal education with a rich focus on critical thinking might look like. Their writing is motivated by and describes particular experiences in a particular law school. They ask where spaces for critical pedagogy might be created and argue that even in the context of current constraints it is possible for legal academics to teach in ways that are consonant with their values and pedagogical philosophies. They then set out some of the ways they are seeking to undertake this project in the environments in which they teach, in both elective and compulsory courses.
Legal philosophical discourse tends to be animated by some conception of self and the parameters ... more Legal philosophical discourse tends to be animated by some conception of self and the parameters of community. Reflecting a vast heritage of humanist philosophy and theology, western legal concepts reflect anthropocentric values. Theories of law and legal concepts promote human beings as separate to the environment and define frameworks for the exploitation of nature. Against this paradigm, environmental philosophers have sought to redefine human beings as integral members of a greater Earth community – nature is a community of subjects, not a collection of objects. This alternative conception of self carries important consequences for legal philosophy. This paper explores these consequences first by analysing the ecological conception of self and community articulated by 'geologian' Thomas Berry (1914-2009). Second, this paper uses Berry's analysis to develop an ecological theory of jurisprudence. This theory connects human law with ecological integrity and holds that human law attains legal quality (in part) when enacted for the common good of the comprehensive Earth community. Throughout this analysis, the paper also highlights the limitations Berry's philosophical and legal writing and seeks dialogue with leftist political theory. Resumen El discurso filosófico jurídico tiende a estimularse por una concepción del individuo y por parámetros de comunidad. Como reflejo de una vasta herencia de la filosofía
This article considers the relevance of Hannah Arendt's writing on responsibility and judgment fo... more This article considers the relevance of Hannah Arendt's writing on responsibility and judgment for legal academics. It begins by providing a sunnnary of Arendt's report on the Eichmann trial, focusing in particular on the gradual shift in her thinking from theorising evil as radical to something that is banal. Following this, I connect Arendt's thinking on judgment with her writing on plurality and what it means to keep company with oneself. I contend that Arendt's most important contribution to moral thinking was the disenchantment of evil from its religious legacy. Finally, I consider the continued relevance of Arendt's warning about the risks mass technological society poses for the capacity of human beings to think and make reflective judgments. These uniquely human characteristics need to be protected, if we are to guard against the rise of inverted totalitarianism and the reduction of human beings to homo oeconomicus.
Worldviews: Global Religions, Culture, and Ecology, 2011
Abstract: On June 1, 2009 Fr Thomas Berry passed away at his home in Greensboro NC In his final b... more Abstract: On June 1, 2009 Fr Thomas Berry passed away at his home in Greensboro NC In his final book before passing, Berry challenged human society to a carry out a transition from a period of human devastation of the Earth to a period when humans would be present to ...
ABSTRACT This article addresses Indigenous Australian claims to water resources and how they info... more ABSTRACT This article addresses Indigenous Australian claims to water resources and how they inform and relate to current Australian law and contemporary legal thinking about future possibilities. It adopts a multidisciplinary approach, drawing from historical records, previous ethnographic investigation with Indigenous Australians, current legal scholarship, and social anthropological theory. In doing so, it analyses Indigenous dependencies on water, the history of settler colonial orientations to water bodies, the evolution of settler colonial-Indigenous relations to natural resources, and the development of the Australian legal system's regulation of water. This provides foundations for a discussion of the limitations of settler colonial notions of property and the failure of settler colonial law to understand and incorporate the dynamism of Indigenous relationships to water, particularly the meaning and productive capacity of water flows within Indigenous cosmologies and sociocultural and ecological systems. Calling for a decolonial turn in legal approaches to Indigenous access and water resource determination, the authors explore the ways in which Australian law may need to ‘unthink’ settler colonial notions of resource ownership as a prerequisite for reformulating future water policy and planning. This reformulation relies on a more extensive legal philosophical engagement with the concept of ‘flow’, a concept that already exists in both water law and planning, but which has not been adequately theorised and enacted. A more comprehensive legal understanding of flow in the context of Indigenous understandings of, and claims to, water provides more sustainable and equitable legal and analytical foundations for managing future water resources issues. The article creates the space for a more culturally relevant notion of ‘Indigenous water rights’ and for new ways of honouring the interrelationship between water flows, meaning-making practices, and cultural continuity.
Our paper seeks to begin a conversation about how legal academics might work collaboratively to r... more Our paper seeks to begin a conversation about how legal academics might work collaboratively to resist neoliberal reforms in legal education. We begin by considering the existing literature about how academics have responded to recent efforts to corporatize university education. This literature reveals a great level of despondency and despair. Most acts of resistance are either individual or passive. Following this, we put forward an alternative conceptualisation of the academic – the academic activist. We consider whether this conceptualisation might offer a place from which resistance can emerge. Finally, we consider strategies that might be adopted by legal academics who wish to contest neoliberalism within the law school and the university. Given the evidence of academic despair and disempowerment, we propose a range of strategies which are both active and passive and range from the individual to the collaborative.
This article critiques the draft Murray-Darling Basin Plan from the perspective of an emerging th... more This article critiques the draft Murray-Darling Basin Plan from the perspective of an emerging theory of law termed Earth Jurisprudence. While the Draft Plan purports to be concerned with ecological management, this paper argues that it actually legitimizes the continued exploitation of the Murray-Darling. Next, the paper considers an alternative approach to ecosystem management that is based on the scientific concept of ‘Ecological Integrity’. This approach views the Murray-Darling as an interconnected hole and demands that its ecological needs receive the highest priority.
The Anthropocene is a term described by Earth Systems Science to capture the recent rupture in th... more The Anthropocene is a term described by Earth Systems Science to capture the recent rupture in the history of the Earth where human action has acquired the power to alter the Earth System as a whole. While normative conclusions cannot be logically derived from this descriptive fact, this paper argues that law and philosophy ought to develop responses that are ordered around human beings. Rather than arguing for legal rights or extending rights to nature, this paper focuses on obligations. Drawing on Hans Jonas, it argues that obligations are a more appropriate tool for cultivating human plurality, restraining human action and protecting future generations.
The Anthropocene is a term described by Earth Systems Science to capture the recent rupture in th... more The Anthropocene is a term described by Earth Systems Science to capture the recent rupture in the history of the Earth where human action has acquired the power to alter the Earth System as a whole. While normative conclusions cannot be logically derived from this descriptive fact, this paper argues that law and philosophy ought to develop responses that are ordered around human beings. Rather than arguing for legal rights or extending rights to nature, this paper focuses on obligations. Drawing on Hans Jonas, it argues that obligations are a more appropriate tool for cultivating human plurality, restraining human action and protecting future generations.
Environmental destruction and climate change are driving new waves of environmental activism. In ... more Environmental destruction and climate change are driving new waves of environmental activism. In response, governments in several Australian states have enacted legislation designed to penalise and silence political protest. This article analyses Tasmania’s anti-protest laws and considers how the United Nations and scholars have reacted to them. We argue that protest suppression laws such as these reflect a neoliberal rationality which conceptualises society in market terms. This mode of thinking perceives protest as market interference rather than civic participation. Accordingly, anti-protest laws seek to secure the rights and interests of corporations to unimpeded market access
In Anthony J Nocella II and Erik Juergensmeyer, eds. Fighting Academic Repression and Neoliberal ... more In Anthony J Nocella II and Erik Juergensmeyer, eds. Fighting Academic Repression and Neoliberal Education: Resistance, Reclaiming, Organizing, and Black Lives Matter in Education (New York, United States of America: Peter Lang, 2017) 33–45.
To date, most authors writing Wild Law have focused on philosophy or proposing alternative or ide... more To date, most authors writing Wild Law have focused on philosophy or proposing alternative or ideallaws. In contrast, this article seeks to understand why legal and governance systems around the worldhave failed to respond to the climate crisis. It also explores the material conditions necessary forenacting a broad social change project. The objective of the article is to initiate a conversation withadvocates of Wild Law about how we can move beyond theory and engage in a collaborative projectof ethical praxis.
In this essay, we offer a modem legal reading of Hannah Arendt's classicbook, Eichmann in Jerusal... more In this essay, we offer a modem legal reading of Hannah Arendt's classicbook, Eichmann in Jerusalem. First we provide a brief account ofhow Arendtcame to write Eichmann in Jerusalem and explain her central argumentsand observations. We then consider the contemporary relevance of Arendt'swork to us as legal academics engaged with a variety of problems arisingfrom our times. We consider Arendt's writing of Eichmann in Jerusalem as a study in intellectual courage and academic integrity, as an importantexample of accessible political theory, as challenging the academic to engagein participatory action, and as informing our thinking about judgement whenwe engage in criminal law reform. Finally, we consider the role of Arendt'smoral judgement for those within government today and how it defendsand informs judgement of the modem bureaucrat at a time of heightenedgovernment secrecy.
The authors map the history of important changes in Australian legal education over the past 20 y... more The authors map the history of important changes in Australian legal education over the past 20 years, with a focus on the influence of the profession on legal education. Using Thornton's account of contemporary law schools 'jettisoning the critical' in the quest for market success as a stepping off point, they put forward a vision of what a legal education with a rich focus on critical thinking might look like. Their writing is motivated by and describes particular experiences in a particular law school. They ask where spaces for critical pedagogy might be created and argue that even in the context of current constraints it is possible for legal academics to teach in ways that are consonant with their values and pedagogical philosophies. They then set out some of the ways they are seeking to undertake this project in the environments in which they teach, in both elective and compulsory courses.
Legal philosophical discourse tends to be animated by some conception of self and the parameters ... more Legal philosophical discourse tends to be animated by some conception of self and the parameters of community. Reflecting a vast heritage of humanist philosophy and theology, western legal concepts reflect anthropocentric values. Theories of law and legal concepts promote human beings as separate to the environment and define frameworks for the exploitation of nature. Against this paradigm, environmental philosophers have sought to redefine human beings as integral members of a greater Earth community – nature is a community of subjects, not a collection of objects. This alternative conception of self carries important consequences for legal philosophy. This paper explores these consequences first by analysing the ecological conception of self and community articulated by 'geologian' Thomas Berry (1914-2009). Second, this paper uses Berry's analysis to develop an ecological theory of jurisprudence. This theory connects human law with ecological integrity and holds that human law attains legal quality (in part) when enacted for the common good of the comprehensive Earth community. Throughout this analysis, the paper also highlights the limitations Berry's philosophical and legal writing and seeks dialogue with leftist political theory. Resumen El discurso filosófico jurídico tiende a estimularse por una concepción del individuo y por parámetros de comunidad. Como reflejo de una vasta herencia de la filosofía
This article considers the relevance of Hannah Arendt's writing on responsibility and judgment fo... more This article considers the relevance of Hannah Arendt's writing on responsibility and judgment for legal academics. It begins by providing a sunnnary of Arendt's report on the Eichmann trial, focusing in particular on the gradual shift in her thinking from theorising evil as radical to something that is banal. Following this, I connect Arendt's thinking on judgment with her writing on plurality and what it means to keep company with oneself. I contend that Arendt's most important contribution to moral thinking was the disenchantment of evil from its religious legacy. Finally, I consider the continued relevance of Arendt's warning about the risks mass technological society poses for the capacity of human beings to think and make reflective judgments. These uniquely human characteristics need to be protected, if we are to guard against the rise of inverted totalitarianism and the reduction of human beings to homo oeconomicus.
Worldviews: Global Religions, Culture, and Ecology, 2011
Abstract: On June 1, 2009 Fr Thomas Berry passed away at his home in Greensboro NC In his final b... more Abstract: On June 1, 2009 Fr Thomas Berry passed away at his home in Greensboro NC In his final book before passing, Berry challenged human society to a carry out a transition from a period of human devastation of the Earth to a period when humans would be present to ...
ABSTRACT This article addresses Indigenous Australian claims to water resources and how they info... more ABSTRACT This article addresses Indigenous Australian claims to water resources and how they inform and relate to current Australian law and contemporary legal thinking about future possibilities. It adopts a multidisciplinary approach, drawing from historical records, previous ethnographic investigation with Indigenous Australians, current legal scholarship, and social anthropological theory. In doing so, it analyses Indigenous dependencies on water, the history of settler colonial orientations to water bodies, the evolution of settler colonial-Indigenous relations to natural resources, and the development of the Australian legal system's regulation of water. This provides foundations for a discussion of the limitations of settler colonial notions of property and the failure of settler colonial law to understand and incorporate the dynamism of Indigenous relationships to water, particularly the meaning and productive capacity of water flows within Indigenous cosmologies and sociocultural and ecological systems. Calling for a decolonial turn in legal approaches to Indigenous access and water resource determination, the authors explore the ways in which Australian law may need to ‘unthink’ settler colonial notions of resource ownership as a prerequisite for reformulating future water policy and planning. This reformulation relies on a more extensive legal philosophical engagement with the concept of ‘flow’, a concept that already exists in both water law and planning, but which has not been adequately theorised and enacted. A more comprehensive legal understanding of flow in the context of Indigenous understandings of, and claims to, water provides more sustainable and equitable legal and analytical foundations for managing future water resources issues. The article creates the space for a more culturally relevant notion of ‘Indigenous water rights’ and for new ways of honouring the interrelationship between water flows, meaning-making practices, and cultural continuity.
Our paper seeks to begin a conversation about how legal academics might work collaboratively to r... more Our paper seeks to begin a conversation about how legal academics might work collaboratively to resist neoliberal reforms in legal education. We begin by considering the existing literature about how academics have responded to recent efforts to corporatize university education. This literature reveals a great level of despondency and despair. Most acts of resistance are either individual or passive. Following this, we put forward an alternative conceptualisation of the academic – the academic activist. We consider whether this conceptualisation might offer a place from which resistance can emerge. Finally, we consider strategies that might be adopted by legal academics who wish to contest neoliberalism within the law school and the university. Given the evidence of academic despair and disempowerment, we propose a range of strategies which are both active and passive and range from the individual to the collaborative.
This article critiques the draft Murray-Darling Basin Plan from the perspective of an emerging th... more This article critiques the draft Murray-Darling Basin Plan from the perspective of an emerging theory of law termed Earth Jurisprudence. While the Draft Plan purports to be concerned with ecological management, this paper argues that it actually legitimizes the continued exploitation of the Murray-Darling. Next, the paper considers an alternative approach to ecosystem management that is based on the scientific concept of ‘Ecological Integrity’. This approach views the Murray-Darling as an interconnected hole and demands that its ecological needs receive the highest priority.
Industrial agriculture is the dominant method for feeding an increasingly urbanised world. Howeve... more Industrial agriculture is the dominant method for feeding an increasingly urbanised world. However, a growing body of literature suggests that industrial practices are unsustainable and risk global food security. This article examines the legal-philosophical dimension of this literature and the vision of good land use promoted in both industrial and agrarian farming practices. It argues that industrial agriculture is premised on a concept of private property that promotes individual preference satisfaction, separates people from place and fragments landscape. In response, this article examines agrarian farming practices as a means of re-conceiving private property so that it is seen to embrace not only human good, but also ethics and the land itself. By re-conceiving private property as embracing these factors, private property may offer but one solution to the agricultural crisis.
This paper considers the concept of earth rights in terms of its historical and jurisprudential u... more This paper considers the concept of earth rights in terms of its historical and jurisprudential underpinnings in Western thought. In so doing, he provides a contextual treatment of, amongst other things, key provisions of the Draft Universal Declaration for the Rights of Nature. This paper also includes a critique of the concepts involved and the role of legislation and advocacy in progressing them. It however ranges beyond the purely legal and considers the wider societal influence associated with affording greater recognition to earth rights.
This paper considers some of the recent legislative developments concerning the rights of nature ... more This paper considers some of the recent legislative developments concerning the rights of nature and argues that the environmental rights movement would benefit from more strenuous critical engagement with the question of nature's potential legal ‘rights'.
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Books by Peter Burdon
Papers by Peter Burdon