A Research Agenda for Green Criminology

Elgar Research Agendas outline the future of research in a given area. Leading scholars are given the space to explore their subject in provocative ways and map out the potential directions of travel. They are relevant but also visionary.

This insightful Research Agenda sheds light on underexplored theories, methods and topics in green criminology and outlines the ways in which powerful actors avoid responsibility for the destruction of the environment. The key underlying message is that we must dare to be positive and seek radical change, placing the planet at the core of decision making.

Tanya Wyatt provides a green criminology approach to water, mining, climate change and space legislation, significantly expanding the scope of the field. For each of these topics, there is a discussion of how powerful actors cause environmental destruction and how they keep this destruction from being recognized as a crime. She then explores and advocates for restorative justice to repair environmental damage. Looking to the future, Wyatt covers two earth-centred legal systems, Rights of Nature and Wild Law, as potential means of restorative justice and considers what these innovative systems could mean for green harms and crimes moving forward.