| The failure of current legal mechanisms and institutions to counter the growing global ecological crisis reflects an absence of the rule of ecological law from the global to the local level. Just as ecological economics has yet to crowd out environmental components of neo-classical economics, a parallel notion of ecological law has not yet displaced contemporary environmental law.;The limitations of contemporary environmental law are illustrated with mostly ineffective attempts to address systemic environmental problems like eutrophication, acid rain, climate change and depletion of the ozone layer, followed by a critique of the broader legal and institutional architecture now in place to address global environmental challenges. The current approach to trade and the environment highlights the failure of the global governance infrastructure to respect global ecological boundaries on the human enterprise.;In response to the ineffectiveness of current mechanisms and structures, ten essential features principles of the rule of ecological law are identified, along with elements of an institutional framework for housing them. Although the transition from a growth-insistent economy that seems headed toward ecological collapse to an economy based on the rule of ecological law is elusive, the European Union is identified as a useful structural model.;The rule of ecological law, building on existing concepts like sustainability law, is founded on the notion that economic and socio-political spheres must be subservient to global ecological limits beyond which lie catastrophic ecological, social and economic collapse. Planetary boundaries of safe operating space for humanity, along with complementary measures and principles, provide the scientific and ethical basis of the rule of ecological law. |
