Maternal care as legal knowledge reshapes international environmental law
Original framing: “Care as legal knowledge: Mothers and the making of international environmental law” — bing news
Indigenous women have long been central to environmental knowledge systems, yet their contributions are rarely acknowledged in international law. Integrating Indigenous perspectives could strengthen legal frameworks by recognizing the relational and intergenerational nature of environmental care.
The integration of maternal care into international environmental law is not merely symbolic but represents a fundamental shift toward recognizing diverse epistemologies.
By centering caregiving as a form of legal knowledge, this approach challenges the dominance of Western, male-centric legal paradigms and opens space for Indigenous and non-Western perspectives. The exclusion of Indigenous women and other marginalized voices from legal frameworks has historically weakened environmental governance, but their inclusion could strengthen it through relational and intergenerational knowledge systems. This synthesis calls for a reimagining of legal education, policy design, and international cooperation that values care as a foundational element of environmental justice.