Law Commons^™

Sustainable Development And The Reconciliation Of Opposites, Alison Peck

Alison Peck

This essay proposes a shift in thinking about the project of sustainable development. Many legal scholars have lamented the limitations of the concept: In cases where no win/win outcome can be identified even after the most careful and coordinated measurement, they argue, the old power struggles between proponents of economics, environment and equity will be entrenched. This essay agrees that sustainable development, by definition, encompasses irresolvable tensions. But this fact becomes less troubling if we abandon the Enlightenment-influenced rationalism that demands such resolution, and instead consider sustainable development through more anti-rationalist traditions: the analytical psychology of Carl G. Jung, and …