Progress and Linear Time: International Environmental Law and the Uneven Distribution of Futurity

This article takes off from the observation that the rhetoric of progress in international law is imbued with temporal assumptions. Through its promise of human progress, international law presumes a linear trajectory of time, which includes a break from an inferior past and embracing of futurity. While the narrative of progress has been analysed and criticised from multiple angles, its temporal dimensions have remained understudied. This article focuses on the distributive effects of the alliance between progress and linear time in the context of the slow ecological emergency. Drawing upon debates in different disciplines, it shows how international law and discourses are involved in upholding temporal assumptions that may reinforce existing inequalities and run against contemporary ecological imperatives. Through the examples of sustainable development, the concept of ambition, and debates around intergenerational justice, I argue that the field’s forward-moving temporality fails to adequately account for the uneven distribution of futurity engendered by climate change and environmental devastation. Understanding how certain ideas about time are made, unmade, and remade in/through international law is central to think about the present and future of life on this planet. It also offers a novel perspective to explore the possibilities for contestation and change within and beyond the legal order.