What Is the Anthropocene—and Why Is It Relevant for International Law?

Abstract

Our Earth is undergoing a shift from the conditions of the most recent officially accepted geological time interval, the Holocene, to a new planetary state. The Holocene is the latest, and formally still current, geological epoch. It comprises the past 11,700 years,1 which have been marked by an exceptionally long period of relative environmental stability and, for approximately the last 7,000 years, of generally stable sea levels. As such, the conditions of the Holocene were a key factor facilitating the development of human civilization. In the early 2000s, Paul Crutzen (Nobel Laureate for his work on atmospheric ozone) suggested that, because of the global environmental effects of economic development and increased human population, the Earth system had already left the Holocene and had entered a new epoch, which he termed the ‘Anthropocene.’2 In the course of the past fifteen years—and since 2009, in particular—the Anthropocene concept has...