From Student Strikes to the Extinction Rebellion

New Protest Movements Shaping our Future

Edited by Benjamin J. Richardson, Professor of Environmental Law, Faculty of Law, University of Tasmania, Australia

Across the world, millions of people are taking to the streets demanding urgent action on climate breakdown and other environmental emergencies. Extinction Rebellion, Fridays for Future and Climate Strikes are part of a new lexicon of environmental protest advocating civil disobedience to leverage change. This groundbreaking book – also a Special Issue of the Journal of Human Rights and the Environment – critically unveils the legal and political context of this new wave of eco-activisms. It illustrates how the practise of dissent builds on a long tradition of grassroots activism, such as the Anti-Nuclear movement, but brings into focus new participants, such as school children, and new distinctive aesthetic tactics, such as the mass ‘die-ins’ and ‘discobedience’ theatrics in public spaces.

‘Extinction Rebellion, children’s climate strikes, Indigenous anti-pipeline protests and proliferating citizen science brigades have lent new urgency to the perennial question of the role of direct action and civil disobedience in struggles for environmental and racial justice. This timely, eclectic, interdisciplinary volume provides invaluable insight into the sources, goals, tactics, prospects and impacts of—and often draconian governmental reactions to—these exciting contemporary movements that employ non-violent mass mobilisation to spur action on ecological and social emergencies. It makes a landmark contribution to empirical and theoretical knowledge in this rapidly evolving field.’
– Stepan Wood, Canada Research Chair in Law, Society & Sustainability, University of British Columbia, Canada