Mumta Ito is a lawyer specialising in law good for all species on the planet. Not just homo sapiens, and certainly not a subset of homo sapiens!
Our legal system has its roots in a time when most people had very few freedoms. A time when there were very few people. A time when nature was infinite, for all practical purposes.
This time has long past, meaning that a legal system that was fit for purpose now has gaps. Gaps, that is, if the purpose is protecting us from harm. Because now, to protect ourselves from harm, we need to protect ourselves from ourselves.
She writes here:
This makes public interest environmental law a frustrating process as the law doesn’t recognise nature’s intrinsic rights to live and thrive – and that our very inter-existence and survival as a species is interdependent on this.
In a way, Mumta is extending to all of law the underlying gaps I covered here in company law..
If we are to have a world worth living in in 2050, we need to develop the legal systems capable of protecting us from ourselves. Protecting the rest of nature from the worst of our nature is part of this. As is new company structures capable of bringing out the best in us.