Environmental and animal restorative justice

• Pages: 13-16
• Author: Rob White

ENVIRONMENTAL AND ANIMAL RESTORATIVE JUSTICE

Rob White

Emeritus Distinguished Professor of Criminology

University of Tasmania, Australia

Ecocentrism refers to valuing nature for itself and not solely for instrumental

purposes. Translated into criminal justice contexts, this means accounting for

the rights of nature and duty of care toward non-human environmental entities

(such as rivers, mountains, birds, animals, and plants) in prosecution, sentencing

and restorative justice processes.

In an ecocentric framework, justice can be described as consisting of three

major dimensions: environmental justice that deals with humans; ecological

justice where the focus is on specic environments; and species justice that

deals with non-human animals and plants. In each of these cases, there are

voices that are marginalised in ordinary courtroom procedures and thereby

potentially in environmental restorative justice (ERJ) processes as well. Even

where non-human interests are acknowledged in ERJ contexts, there are major

obstacles and dilemmas regarding who can or should speak ‘for’ and/or ‘about’

the non-human experience.

The terms ‘natural object’ and abiotic are sometimes used to describe non-

living entities such as rivers, mountains, soils and oceans. Fauna or animal life

is ordinarily dealt with through use of the term ‘animal’ while ora or plant life

is ordinarily referred to under the broad category of ‘vegetation’. Ecosystems

can be dened as a dynamic complex of plant, animal and micro-organism

communities and their non-living environment interacting as a functional

unit. Together these entities comprise what can be described as non-human

environmental entities.