Ecolawriors: Knights of the Green Law Consciousness

Abstract

Abstract This article introduces the connected concepts of ecolawfare—legal challenges to violations and violators of environmental law—and ecolawriors, its practitioners. These concepts are extensions of lawfare and lawriors, terms that emerged in this century’s first decade in a military context. The article examines sociological, political economic, and legal literature, as well as black letter law, and argues that many non-US jurisdictions have been eco-friendly trendsetters in law. The article examines the relationships of ecolawfare and ecolawriors with Green social movements, presents a Marxian perspective on intergenerational equity, the public trust doctrine, and rights of nature against the backdrop of capitalist extraction, the climate crisis, and related litigation, and posits a legal parallel between protecting ecosystems and protecting civil rights. The article argues that the climate crisis demands radically new approaches to the law, including lawyers who do not think like traditional lawyers.