Meet the Expert: Shivant Jhagroe
Dr. Shivant Jhagroe is an assistant professor at Leiden University’s Governance and Global Affairs faculty, who focusses on governance of sustainability. He specialises in how to include marginalized and non-human actors in the decision-making process. He is one of the main speakers of LeidenGlobal’s Annual event, the panel discussion: ‘Should Nature be given Rights?’. He is also one of the tutors of the masterclass that will be given prior to the discussion. What drives him and what’s his perspective on the issue of nature rights?
After obtaining his master’s degrees in Public Administration and History, dr. Jhagroe went on to do his PhD at Erasmus University Rotterdam. His dissertation was on the making of sustainable cities, considering questions such as ‘who shapes the agenda in the decision-making process of making a city more sustainable, and who doesn’t?’ Afterwards he did his postdoc at the Technological University of Eindhoven and from 2018 onwards has been working for Leiden University. Nowadays, his research focus is on sustainability, governance and inequality and how we can have more social and climate justice. As one of his driving forces, he expressed it is important to him as a scholar of colour to be involved in these debates on climate policy and climate justice. “This discussion is often dominated by western perspectives on the solution, which tends to miss out on some justice driven narratives and voices, for example the Indigenous and decolonial ways of thinking about ecology. As a researcher and teacher, I try to foreground these perspectives as much as possible.” He also wrote about a plea for climate justice at OneWorld (in Dutch) in these 2 articles: Onze energietransitie is koloniaal & Kap met Duurzaamheid. Recently dr. Shivant Jhagroe wrote a piece in 'De Groene' (in Dutch) in which he explores the relationship between humans and nature from a decolonial perspective.
His current research also touches upon the question of giving legal rights to nature. According to dr. Jhagroe, a key component to discuss when talking about nature rights, is to be critical of using western legal language to protect the rights of nature, like rivers. If we give rights to nature, just like we give rights to humans and companies, it will result in a trade-off and finding a new balance between those different rights. He remarks that “if you need legal rights to protect nature, there might still be something wrong with the way we relate to ecology.” There are also more practical issues that stand in the way of nature rights being an effective method, for example, a lack of enforcement, or the privilege of time and money that you sometimes need to fight for nature rights in court. He is thus critical about nature rights, but also sees it as “an important legal movement, that helps us to reimagine how we relate to our environment and shows how a modern western understanding of nature is bankrupt.”
Giving rights to nature can be a stepping stone towards a more fundamental cultural and economic transformation, which would be dr. Jhagroe’s hope for the future. “Nature rights can help us unlearn to see nature as something we can pollute and extract from.” He mentioned that we shouldn’t only protect nature from polluting industries but get to the root cause of the problem and get rid of a growth-based economy, so that we tackle problems of pollution and climate disruption at a deeper level.
In the discussion of giving rights to nature, dr. Jhagroe thus advocates for more consideration about these fundamental questions that are not just about legal rights. “If legal experts dominate the discussion, it will be a very limited debate.” To fuel this discussion, LeidenGlobal invited experts from different fields to further go into this question of giving legal rights to nature during our annual event.
By LeidenGlobal intern Eline Raukema
September 2024
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