ABSTRACT
Our current framework of global governance, concentrating on so-called “nation-states” that dominate economic life, political loyalties, and international law, has proven ill-equipped to serve in the capacity of “trustees for the athanatoi (our living planet), as urged in Chapter 5. National rivalries tend toward conflicting claims and jealousies over “natural resources”; these national rivalries augur against collaborative arrangements aimed at the restoration and preservation of the ecosphere and the life it gives. This chapter emphasizes, however, that some exceptions to these tendencies have appeared: some cross-border entities have emerged recently that possess legal (juridical) personality, that encompass territory falling within the jurisdiction of more than one “nation-state”, and that have the preservation of natural habitats as their raison d’être. Those novel entities offer useful models for establishing a complementary framework of what I call “eco-states” that would have jurisdiction and authority equivalent to the jurisdiction and authority of “nation-states”, but with two notable features. First, the territorial scope of an eco-state’s jurisdiction would be defined by purely ecological factors: climate (rainfall, temperatures, etc.), soil type, land cover, species diversity, and other biogeographical features. Second, eco-states’ subject-matter jurisdiction or authority would extend only to agroecological matters. In short, this chapter describes how we might establish “new roots for sovereignty” in a way that parallels Wes Jackson’s attempt to establish “new roots for agriculture” about 40 years ago.
