Ruling on Nature (RULNAT). Animals and the Environment before the Court
Ruling on Nature (RULNAT) is a four-year research project (2020-2024) funded by the French National Research Agency. It is coordinated by the Centre for Himalayan Studies, in scientific partnership with the Laboratoire d’Ethnologie et de Sociologie Comparative, the Centre de Recherches Internationales and the Université Libre de Bruxelles. The international team is composed of eleven anthropologists, two law scholars, a geographer and an environmental lawyer.
Our aim is to study how issues related to animals and the environment are brought before the court in different countries; how they are handled by lawyers, activists and the state; how they are concretely implemented in litigation. The approach is based on the study of court cases in their multiple dimensions in order to analyse how the relations between humans and animals or the environment are shaped – or not – by legal action.
Over the last decades, the animal and environment debate has begun to intensify throughout the world and cases have been repeatedly brought before the court. Though these issues are not new, their scope has extended, reflecting a change in sensitivity to – and perception of – domestic and wild animals, as well as a sense of urgency to save compromised natural resources.