Liability for Environmental Harm as a Response to the Anthropocene

Abstract

The Anthropocene is often framed in terms of understanding and mitigating large-scale human-induced environmental change. However, facing unprecedented planetary transformations, the differentiated impacts that global environmental change has across communities, species, time and place must not only be considered and characterised, but actively remedied. Instruments that help reconcile related inequities and facilitate our daily existence within injured environments are also essential. We argue that ‘liability for environmental harm’ provides a critical, if under-utilised and challenging, legal response to the Anthropocene.