Abstract
The European Union (EU) is widely considered as a ‘leader’ in global environmental politics. Over the past forty years, it has gradually adopted a corpus of primary/secondary environmental law allowing it to become the strongest regional environmental protection regime in the world. As a global actor, the EU attempts to export this acquis, following a mainstreaming approach that in principle demands attention to the protection of non-human nature in all of its external action. Employing four different approaches to the human-NHN relationship derived from the debate about global environmental justice, this chapter provides a critical discussion of EU external activities related to the protection of non-human nature and their effects. It focuses on three domains that are central to tackling the causes of the Anthropocene: EU external action aimed at mitigating climate change, halting biodiversity loss and governing the Arctic as a major theatre of environmental degradation processes. The chapter finds that the EU’s diplomacy primarily pursues a ‘reformist’ justice agenda, aimed at better ‘managing’ non-human nature. It fares rather well with regard to the conclusion of international environmental agreements (institutional effectiveness), but less so when it comes to the actual protection of non-human nature (ecological effectiveness).
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Notes
- 1.
The literature on ‘planetary boundaries’ does not advocate NHN protection for the sake of NHN, but is fundamentally anthropocentric, as the boundaries it identifies delimit the safe operating space for humanity on this planet. This chapter is agnostic about the motivation for pursuing the protection of NHN, whether they are anthropo- or NHN-centric. What it is interested in is whether protection measures are pursued and effective.
- 2.
The status quo position largely corresponds to an understanding of justice also held by ‘Ecomodernists’, who desire to ‘use humanity’s extraordinary powers in service of creating a good Anthropocene’ (Ecomodernism 2019).
- 3.
The central reliance on technology as the solution to any potential challenge arising from NHN is characteristic of the status quo justice position (and ecomodernism). At the same time, adherents of the reformist and transformational justice perspectives also seek to develop and manage technologies (e.g. renewable energy technologies) in pursuit of (environmental) justice-related goals.
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Schunz, S., De Botselier, B., López Piqueres, S. (2020). The European Union’s Diplomacy: Protecting Non-Human Nature?. In: Pereira, J., Saramago, A. (eds) Non-Human Nature in World Politics. Frontiers in International Relations. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-49496-4_12
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