People For Earth

On April 26, the "Earth  Law for Citizens Initiative" event was held at the National Assembly Committee Hall. This meaningful gathering brought together earth law experts and ordinary citizens to take the “first step toward earth law.” 

2024 Earth Law for Citizens Initiative: First Step to Earth Law

❍ Host: Sun Pro Bono Center, People for Earth 
❍ Date: April 26, 2024 (Friday), 14:00~16:00
❍ Location: Conference Room 8, National Assembly Committee Building
❍ Target Audience: Any general or organization interested in earth law
❍ Sponsor: Legal Newspaper

In the first session, hosted by Bomi Kim, an attorney at Sun Pro Bono Center, Hyejin Jung, director of  People for Earth's Earth Jurisprudence Center, introduced the concept and history of Earth Jurisprudence under the theme “Why Earth Law?” She discussed the need for earth law in the era of climate crisis. In the second session, Professor Taehyun Park of Kangwon National University Law School, president of the Academic Society on Earth Jurisprudence, addressed “Earth Law Precedents and Applicability in Korea,” followed by a discussion involving all attendees.

Earth Law is Earth’s Bill of Rights

If laws and systems are to solve the fundamental problems of reality, the laws and systems themselves need to be fundamentally changed. For that, we need legislative imagination. 

- Attorney Hyejin Jung

I come from a practical background and am very interested in practice. I realized that changing the existing system just a little wasn’t enough, so I looked for an alternative to environmental law and found Wild Law.

It is a challenge to the fundamental concept of the law and an attempt to crack the law. For example, it means recognizing the rights of nature, which used to be regarded as an object, asset, or property. Because this is completely different from existing approaches, legal scholars initially said it was nonsense, and so did I.

- Professor Taehyun Park

Can we solve the climate crisis if we give rights to nature? 

- Citizen question

It’s about creating a stepping stone to take steps toward solving the problem. Earth jurisprudence can be seen as an approach rather than an attempt to create specific individual laws. It involves changing the values ​​embedded in current human laws and systems. At this event, I wanted to introduce the possibility that a law could be created based on earth-centered values.
It is currently difficult in our country to grant rights to all of nature as in South America. However, an initiative was recently launched in Jeju Island to introduce an ecological corporation system for southern bottlenose dolphins, a biological species. If the southern dolphins are granted legal personality, there will be a change in the value of dolphins’ existence, leading to cultural changes and gradual transformations like this.

- Professor Taehyun Park’s response