Introduction and context
Responding to entangled socio-political and ecological crises, Interconnected Law is a new legal paradigm in which law should cultivate harmonious socio-ecological relations. This article is a very short overview and intends to seed further reading. It is a condensed version of ‘An Overview of Interconnected Law’ and is part of a combination of efforts to bring the approach into the world in its most developed state as Alex enters medical retirement. These articles have been prepared by an editor drawing on a range of Alex’s recent writing and guided by his schema of Interconnected Law. For those who wish to learn more, an archive of Alex’s draft PhD notes will be shared publicly in the coming weeks.
Interconnected Law’s paradigm, worldview, and conceptual foundations
The dominant paradigm in legal thinking is flawed because it is reductionist – we need a holistic alternative which rejects individualism, human-nature separation, and the distinction of social and ecological relationships. Responsively, Interconnected Law represents a paradigmatic shift to see the world as inherently relational. The approach is rooted in a worldview that humans, society, and nature are interconnected in dense global networks of relations. We are also part of communities and municipalities embedded in nature.
Jennifer Nedelsky’s book ‘Law’s Relations’ underpins this worldview. Nedelsky critiques the dominant liberal approach to law which sees humans as freestanding rather than interconnected. Nedelsky’s relationality is “a shift in emphasis that moves relationships from the periphery to the centre of legal and political thought and practice” 1. Nedelsky considered relationships broadly – they may be ecological, economic, familial, intimate, neighborly, political, and social.
While Nedelsky gives attachment points, ecological thinking is not woven into the conception of the relational self. This amendment is central to Interconnected Law, an approach premised on the reality that we are nature. Hence, Social Ecology is integrated to ‘ecologise’ the framework in ‘Law’s Relations’. The concept of Social Ecology, formulated by Murray Bookchin in the late 1960s, views society as within nature. Bookchin’s core argument is that ecological destruction is part of social domination between humans and (almost) all “environmental” issues are rooted in social relations. Social Ecology is the foundation that the theory of Interconnected Law grows from.
I distinguish ‘narrow’ social ecology as Bookchin’s philosophy of nature and conceptual framework for understanding the relationship between society and ecology, and ‘broad’ social ecology which includes Bookchin’s political project of what to do about this through a positive social vision, political analysis and strategy. This clarifies which elements I take as foundational in my project and what I see as political commitments beyond my legal theory. My project needs a conceptual foundation, a theory of nature and society, and Bookchin’s Social Ecology, in the narrow sense, is my main substantive foundation to think about law.
A relational socio-ecological paradigm for legal thinking
The approach offers a descriptive legal theory of how law influences and structures socio-ecological relations. This is a formal theory (a case about the shape of something instead of its morality) of what law does, not what it should do. The formal argument for interconnected law is: legal systems are generally based on a mistaken idea of atomised individuals which doesn’t account for the complex network of relations that make up society. Therefore, in a formal sense, law would be a better “tool” if it were based on realities of interconnectivity and relationality. So, even if you don’t agree with my values, principles, analysis and application, there is still something in Interconnected Law for you.
What does law do?
Our legal system structures and influences human activity and relations, through gentle reproduction of relational patterns and firm enforcement of particular relational structures. As such, the law has a significant role in constituting society, giving us frameworks to interpret ourselves and the world. For instance, our legal systems designate land, animals, and ecosystems as objects which humans are empowered to destroy and plunder. In doing so, our legal system codifies a division between humans and nature and perpetuates extractive activities.
Law has mostly faded into the background, seen as a neutral and technical system. To better reflect the world, Law should be based on complex interconnection. This argument is not that law should influence relationships, but that (in the relational understanding) it already does. This descriptive, value-neutral, theory is useful for anyone working with or about law, as it is about law as an instrument. That said, the approach is incomplete until we add a value-based framework for what law should do.
Normative legal theory
Interconnected Law creates a normative, value-based, framework in which law should be used as a tool to make relations more just, harmonious, and empowering. Rather than reproducing the neoliberal vision of law as protecting individual negative liberty, with a relational approach law should mediate interwoven social relations, aiming to structure them more justly, and better realise human freedom by protecting and empowering people.
Aiming to change law’s role in society, the approach is guided by particular normative theories of justice including ecological ethics in the form of earth jurisprudence; ethics of care; and social justice ideas including broad social ecology, communitarianism, collective anarchism, and liberation politics. Broadly, these concepts and their value-systems can be adapted for a range of contexts and come under an umbrella of ‘relations of freedom’. The approach is given normative substance by social justice ideas including equality, autonomy (people should have control over, and think about, their lives collectively, not individually), and democracy (which should be based on multi-level engagement).
The approach is designed for people in a western liberal capitalist democracy, specifically the UK and USA. It is a development from within, recognising our cultural and historical conditions and trying to move into a better tomorrow. It draws on existing developments from science, queer and feminist theories, political currents and romantic approaches to nature within our culture. In short: it is neither a universal idea about law nor a vision of the final goal of law, but one for now and the near future.
Connecting Earth Jurisprudence, Rights of Nature, and human rights
Earth Jurisprudence (EJ) is the most developed ecological approach to law and is thereby the best for Interconnected Law to draw from. EJ is a response to current legal systems which separate humans from the rest of nature and see nature as property without inherent values or subjecthood. EJ goes beyond a critique that environmental law has failed to prevent ecological harm, saying that law is not a neutral medium but a facilitator of destruction. In Cormac Cullinan’s words:
“[…] one of the primary causes of environmental destruction is the fact that our governance systems are designed to perpetuate human domination of Nature, instead of fostering mutually beneficial relationships between humans and the other members of the Earth community.” 2
Cullinan proposes that legal systems include non-human nature as rights subjects. This concept is commonly described as ‘Rights of Nature’ (RoN). Interconnected Law provides a generative critique of EJ and RoN for lacking meaningful consideration of social justice, political dynamics, and just inter-human relations. Interconnected Law encompasses the interconnectivity of socio-ecological relations, helping us move towards societies where humans have sustainable relations reflecting their social context. For the RoN this means that we must seek democratic and decentralised, not bureaucratic, methods of implementation. Further, for RoN campaigns to be successful it is important that they both show people and work to realise improved social outcomes.
Interconnected Law’s holistic approach, seeing rights subjects as socio-ecologically embedded, allows ecological integrity, the RoN, and human rights to exist in harmony instead of contention 3. Whilst critical scholarship has challenged human rights law’s basis of the abstracted individual subject, it lacks significant ecological dimensions. Interconnected law can be used to ‘ecologise’ traditional human rights law through relationality.
Specific Areas of the Law
Below are some short sketches of how the paradigm would affect particular legal domains – mapping conditions and relations, asking how they could be more just, and considering law’s role.
Property law: the approach would find the relational context of the property and how these relationships could be more balanced. Ownership would be more akin to ‘stewardship’, with greater responsibilities attached. Ownership of land containing habitats could have the legal responsibility that ecological health is maintained. Perhaps someone who owns a house could have a responsibility to the local community that it is used in the public interest, which could be determined by a democratically-created policy like a council’s housing strategy.
Criminal law: the approach would situate ‘crime’, perpetrators and harm in a relational context – looking at socio-economic causes and taking a ‘public health’ approach. This highlights behaviours which should not be criminalised, like recreational drug use and rough sleeping, and supports goals of security and wellbeing – values best understood relationally. Security is not about protecting ‘good ’ from ‘bad’ people, but relationships of security which give conditions of safety. Restorative and transformative justice are examples of pre-existing relational approaches in criminal law.
Corporate law: the approach would aim to transform the (currently piecemeal) regulation of corporate activity by mapping businesses relations and impacts and asking how the law could make them fairer. A ‘triple bottom line’ could become a legal framework instead of a voluntary approach – turning impacts into legal duties that become parameters for legitimate activity. A company could be required to be responsible for realising human rights in its supply chain; being fair to employees; and having positive impacts on Nature.
To summarise
Interconnected Law provides a framework to apply a socio-ecological legal paradigm to specific policy areas or legal domains. This combines a descriptive theory of how law works and how to better use law, with a normative value-based framework of how law should be used to make socio-ecological relations more just and harmonious by looking at relationships. The argument is certainly not that law alone can save us, but that law must itself change to become a catalyst for broader political and social transformations – a part which has so far been overlooked.
As stated, this is a very brief introduction condensed from ‘An Overview of Interconnected Law‘. More detailed insights into Alex’s most developed thinking on the approach will be shared soon in the archive of PhD notes.
- This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 (BY-NC-ND) which means that the text and graphics may be used for non-commercial purposes, provided credit is given to the author. For details go to http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/.
- Editing work by Lucy Gavaghan, 2025/2026.
- Photo credits: Peter Ramsden, Reddish Vale, 2025.
References
- Jennifer Nedelsky, Law’s Relations: A Relational Theory of Self, Autonomy, and Law (Oxford University Press 2011) 3. ↩︎
- Cormac Cullinan, ‘A History of Wild Law’ in Exploring Wild Law (Wakefield Press 2011) 13. ↩︎
- Montalvan Zambrano D, ‘2021 Harmony with Nature -Theme: Earth Jurisprudence’ (2021) <http://files.harmonywithnatureun.org/uploads/upload1086.pdf> accessed 17 March 2026 ↩︎