A tragedy of the commons is a difficult sort of problem. Cooperation creates the greatest good for the greatest number, but there is an incentive to be selfish. Increased wildfires, depletion of global fisheries, deforestation, oceanic garbage patches, and the spread of COVID-19 are all evidence of our failure to act collectively.
Increasingly, we are confronted with the reality that the nearly eight billion of us are a global society, and here lies a massive intersection between climate change and the law. The law, as it happens, is a set of rules reflecting societal design decisions: design decisions which are very frequently geared at combating social bad actors. Lawyers, therefore, are uniquely positioned to engage in discourse around the health of the planet, which is increasingly a rights-based conversation focused on Earth as the common heritage of humankind.
— Brandon D. Hastings, Chair, BarTalk Editorial Committee
