Abstract

We need a new legal paradigm for the Anthropocene. This paradigm is called earth system law. Building on ongoing earth system law-related research, this chapter uses the city as a ‘laboratory’ to interrogate the deficiencies of current law and governance arrangements that mediate the place of humans in, and their impacts on, the Earth system. It then seeks to reimagine these law and governance arrangements through an urban lens, with the view to proposing thoroughgoing legal reforms alongside an Earth system perspective. The potential of cities to steer the development of earth system law for the Anthropocene is highlighted throughout the discussion.