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Bettis, Jodie (2023). Piloting The Spirit Of The Law Test: Quantifying Ecocide Law Codification in Post-Brexit Environmental Law. Postgraduate Research Poster Competition, The Open University.
Abstract
This poster summarises the pilot study to test a novel method to measure ecosystem protection in post-Brexit environmental law. Using a legal geographic approach, it focuses on whether the Environment Act 2021 includes principles relating to the destruction of ecosystems or ‘ecocide’. To quantify this, the researcher developed and tested a comparative corpus linguistic method called the Spirit of the Law (SOTL) Test.
Using a traffic-light system, where green indicates identicality and red indicates low to zero similarity, results showed that the 6-step SOTL Test method ran without error and that the Environment Act (BOL) has limited alignment with ecocide law in other countries (CEL) or draft UK ecocide law (MEL). Further qualitative analysis revealed that the model ecocide law (MEL) corpus lacks provisions for protecting the rights of nature, which may explain its low similarity to codified ecocide law (CEL) worldwide.
In conclusion, the SOTL Test provides a useful tool for quickly assessing the extent to which principles of interest are codified in law. This pilot study suggests that incorporating rights of nature could enhance the alignment between UK law and ecocide legislation in other countries. Further research is needed to understand whether current and ongoing law reforms will better protect British nature from further depletion.
Audio description:
This poster is audio described. Follow the QR code (on the poster) to access externally hosted audio content (YouTube) and further information about this project.
CORE (COnnecting REpositories)
CORE (COnnecting REpositories)
