ABSTRACT
A relational analysis highlights the urgent need to transform human–Earth relations to avert climate catastrophe. Private property is an essential part of the necessary change. Property law distributes, authorises, and justifies power and affirms the ‘rightness’ of the prevailing relations of hierarchy, including the most basic hierarchy of humans above the rest of the Earth. Property must begin to express and implement a relationship of mutual respect among humans and respectful care for members of the Earth community. The proposal is for a form of ‘trust’ that would foster these relations. The land itself would stop being an object for use and extraction and would become a fellow, interdependent subject. Thus, private property in land would come with a built-in legal responsibility for care, a responsibility extending to future generations. Resources for such a foundational transformation include Indigenous legal systems, legal history, and existing legal concepts such as the doctrine of trust. Examples include public and private land trusts. The embeddedness of property in our legal, economic, and cultural systems makes transformation both profoundly difficult and urgently needed. The legal and ethical tools are available now.
