ABSTRACT
Chapter 4 examines whether and how posthuman feminism may be used to re-imagine international environmental law. The chapter begins by outlining the key elements of posthuman feminist theories of new materialism, noting the focus in these theories on dismantling subject/object and nature/culture binaries and on understanding matter as an actant. This scholarship is brought into conversation with critical environmental law work which has begun to use posthuman theory to challenge legal anthropocentrism. Arguing that questions of class, patriarchy, ableism, racism and coloniality must remain at the forefront of attempts to transform international environmental law, it is argued that there is a need to pay greater attention to which forms of posthumanism are being used in critical environmental law scholarship. Furthermore, noting that some strands of scholarship on gender and the environment are based on essentialist ideas that women are somehow more connected to nature, it is likewise argued that there is a need to pay attention to which forms of feminism are being applied. Noting the anti-essentialism inherent in queer feminist theories of the nonhuman and the fact that these theories have long worked to challenge intersectional structures of oppression when challenging anthropocentrism, this chapter argues that much can be learnt by applying queer theories to international environmental law.
