Degrowth

About Geoffrey Garver

Geoffrey Garver teaches environmental courses as an adjunct professor at McGill and Concordia Universities in Montreal, and coordinates law and governance research for the Leadership for the Ecozoic program. He is on the Steering Committee of the Ecological Law and Governance Association and is active in the degrowth movement. Geoff has worked at the Commission for Environmental Cooperation, the U.S. Justice Department and the U.S. EPA. His book Ecological Law and the Planetary Crisis was published in 2021.

Justice • 09.05.2021

Degrowth and law – how to combine these concepts?

By: Geoffrey Garver

Reconciling degrowth and law isn’t always easy, given the anarchist underpinnings and anti-statist leanings of some in the degrowth community. One vision of a degrowth world is of decentralized, autonomous, convivial communities of people in tune with their supporting ecosystems, consuming no more than they need, sharing as much as possible and treating each other with compassion, fairness and mutual respect. No central state power, no police, no borders, no masters and servants, no conspicuous consumption, no oppression. This, however, doesn’t necessarily require a world without law, just a world with law that is much different from the forms of law that prevail in today’s rapacious and unjust world.