Law, Humans and Plants in the Andes-Amazon: The Lawness of Life
Author: Iv谩n Dar铆o Vargas Roncancio
- Honorable Mention, Law and Society Association
Law, Humans and Plants in the Andes-Amazon: The Lawness of Life challenges traditional Western legal frameworks by exploring how plants and indigenous knowledge reshape our understanding of law. Professor Vargas Roncancio argues that legal systems exclusively focused on human perspectives are inadequate for addressing current socio-ecological crises, advocating instead for a post-anthropocentric approach that recognizes the interactions between humans and other-than-human beings as fundamental to legal institutions and decision-making. Building on Earth Law, ecological law, and posthumanism scholarship, the book critiques both Rights of Nature approaches and the ontological and methodological foundations of Western law. Vargas Roncancio also uses rich ethnographic data and innovative legal theory to reconceptualize law from the perspective of the ecological systems it regulates, combining Indigenous legal traditions with multispecies ethnography to advance an epistemologically plural Earth jurisprudence that he argues can better confront our planet鈥檚 environmental challenges.