Center for Earth Jurisprudence, Patricia Siemen, O.P., Executive Director
Offices are in South and Central Florida, USA.
The mission of the Center for Earth Jurisprudence is to advance legal principles, laws and governance that reflect a transformative Earth-centered perspective and support the well-being of all members of the Earth community.
Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund, Thomas Linzey, Esq., Executive Director
Offices are in Pennsylvania, USA.
We believe that we are in the midst of an escalating ecological crisis, and that the crisis is the result of decisions made by a relatively few people who run corporations and government. We believe that sustainability will never be achieved by leaving those decisions in the hands of a few – both because of their belief in limitless economic production and because their decisions are made at a distance from the communities experiencing the impact of those decisions. Therefore, we believe that to attain sustainability, a right to local self-government must be asserted that places decisions affecting communities in the hands of those closest to the impacts. That right to local self-government must enable communities to reject unsustainable economic and environmental policies set by state and federal governments, and must enable communities to construct legal frameworks for charting a future towards sustainable energy production, sustainable land development, and sustainable water use, among others. In doing so, communities must challenge and overturn legal doctrines that have been concocted to eliminate their right to self-government, including the doctrines of corporate constitutional rights, preemption, and limitations on local legislative authority. Inseparable from the right to local self government – and its sole limitation – are the rights of human and natural communities; they are the implicit and enumerated premises on which local self government must be built.
Earth Jurisprudence Resource Centre
Offices are in London, England, UK
Mission: To nurture and support the growing network of actors evolving and applying Earth Jurisprudence
Gaia Foundation’s Earth Jurisprudence Resource Centre will provide communities, grassroots lawyers and organisations, academics and policy-makers access to materials on international legal precedents, publications, articles and map initiatives and case studies on Earth Jurisprudence and Wild Law.
NB: While the new website is being developed there is a temporary one at www.earthjurisprudence.org and https://wiki.gaianet.org/groups/gaiapublic/ (11-30-10: possible bad link/under construction). More information about Earth Jurisprudence and how communities are practicing Earth centred living can be found at https://www.gaiafoundation.org/content/earth-jurisprudence-earth-law
ETC Editor’s Note: The Earth Jurisprudence web site write-up is smart, clear, detailed, with intellectually cogent references to Thomas Berry, and the larger Earth Community about which he spoke. I am also very impressed with the organization and presentation of key ideas on the main page (left side) of the parent-foundation’s web page, https://www.gaiafoundation.org/. I feel especially informed by what they call “False Solutions: Industrial Agriculture,Genetic Engineering, Agrofuels, Biochar, Land-grabbing, Harmful New Technologies”. I highly recommend a look. https://www.gaiafoundation.org/
Earthjustice, Trip Van Noppen, President – “Because (the) Earth Needs a Good Lawyer”
Main office in Oakland, California, USA. Nine regional offices around the USA, an international program, and a policy and legislation team.
Earthjustice is a non-profit public interest law firm in the USA dedicated to protecting the magnificent places, natural resources, and wildlife of this earth, and to defending the right of all people to a healthy environment.
