Beyond the Western idea of scarsity. Contributions to a relational theory of law from indigenous cosmovisions

The most vital challenge humanity has to face is the climate and environmental crisis that our current economic model has produced, threatening the stability of the Earth’s system and our survival as a species. The last IPCC and IPBES reports show that if we continue with the business-as-usual model, future scenarios will be catastrophic. The scientific solutions suggested in those reports substantially correspond to how indigenous peoples have always conceived their relationship with Mother Earth: living in harmony with nature, recognizing our vulnerability and interdependency with all other biotic and abiotic elements that compose the Earth System. Indigenous knowledge shows that the core problem of the Anthropocene is scarcity of intra- and inter-species empathy and relations, and to remedy this we are called to an ecological conversion of our entire lifestyle. Until now, legal science has remained completely indifferent to this call. The aim of this chapter is therefore to investigate the impact this ecological and relational shift could have on the legal paradigm. Our main thesis argues that relationality, which represents the systemic interconnectedness of all ecological subjects, should shift from the periphery to the core of law. We then focus on the contribution of the chthonic tradition to the construction of a relational system of rights and investigate how this superposes and integrates with other critical approaches such as feminist and decolonial law, the ethics of care, and Earth Jurisprudence.