ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses the various ways in which key concepts that frame and animate thought and scholarship in international law and the humanities are being rethought and reanimated in response to the ‘Anthropocene’. Given that understandings and implications of the Anthropocene thesis are subject to political contestation and normative choice, we emphasise that the ‘Anthropocene’ does not impel a singular mode of engagement but, rather, poses critical questions about the futures we wish to collectively build. Further, we suggest the ‘Anthropocene’ concept might be also considered a galvanising idea that marshals different interdisciplinary engagements between law and the humanities. We foreground the inherent political choices in different ways of engaging the ‘Anthropocene’ thesis that could variously reinforce dominant frames or unsettle and pluralise international law. Ultimately, we suggest that an embrace of the plurality of the broader ‘Anthropocene’ concept enlivens new collective possibilities and encounters within and between communities as well as scholarly disciplines, and might facilitate a more responsive, radical and open international law.
