An Act of Hope? Law, the Environment and Future Generation

This paper explores how hope might become an object of inquiry in environmental law scholarship. It presents several different examples, as a way into thinking about hope as a multifarious mode of being or doing, in and around the law. The examples fall within three broad categories: (1) aspirational environmental law duties; (2) progressive rights of nature; and (3) experimental declarations of climate emergency. In certain respects, the examples drawn upon are regarded in conventional legal terms as having little practical consequence, as falling short of some ideal state, or even as failures. They occupy an ambiguous legal space or are outside normal practice. All of them, in one way or another, can be seen as ‘acts of hope’.