Avatar: From Earth to Pandora, What Rights do we Have Over our Environment?

This is an unexpected reader. Olivier Lasmoles, professor of law at SKEMA Business School and author of “Le droit pénal fait son cinéma” has read a book… on anthropology. “How to Inhabit Our Planet – A Reading of Avatar” by CNRS research director Perig Pitrou. The convergence of their expertise and their exploration of Pandora leads to a question: are we ready to (re)conquer our own environment?

I may surprise you, but Avatar is not a science fiction film. To find out, you have to read Perig Pitrou. When I opened this book, I expected an analysis of the first two installments of the saga through the lens of themes all too often studied: criticism of extractivism and predatory capitalism, criticism of the rhetorical figure of the White Savior, or a defense of spiritualized ecology. 192 pages later, I must admit: I was wrong.

For Perig Pitrou, Avatar is an anthropological experiment. James Cameron’s saga makes us question how “humans organize themselves collectively to care for the fragility of human lives and create harmonious relationships with their living environments.” In short, Avatar is not the story you think it is; it is not merely the story of the conquest of an alien world, but the story of humanity’s conquest of a world – and thus, as you’ve understood, the (re)conquest of our own world. To go to Pandora is to reflect on Earth.

Avatar, an Expansion of Our Universes

To explore “How to inhabit our planet,” Perig Pitrou draws on four major strands of anthropology through which he illuminates and analyzes Avatar: the ethnology of non-Western societies; science and technology studies; the anthropology of nature and the ecologies of life; and the anthropology of biopolitics and everyday life.

According to him, Avatar’s success stems from the fact “that it explores the connections between the human condition and technological, ecological, and political realities.” James Cameron offers an immersive reality that triggers in the viewer, a new experience and a reflection on this new world and its challenges – which are, to a greater or lesser extent, our own.

Beyond the beauty of the landscapes and the realism of the scenes, this type of Hollywood blockbuster affects us all differently: some are fans, others are skeptical of the apparent simplicity of the messages conveyed. But no one remains indifferent. This fosters exchanges, discussions, and debates and, in the end, fuels collective projects. By this, we mean projects with a positive impact on the world, “expanding the scope of a work far beyond what the director intended to put into it.” Perig Pitrou’s essay is part of this approach: contributing to this collective endeavor by suggesting avenues for reflection. Take Jake’s avatar, for example. Thanks to it, the film’s hero has a brain and two bodies. Just like Colonel Miles, his superior. But unlike him, Jake achieves this through ancestral methods, not via technology. Here, the opposition between nature and culture comes into play. An opposition that the author calls for us to transcend.

Pandora, the New Frontier

This anthropological reflection opened my chakras. But you can’t change who you are: as I read these lines, it was from a legal, very earthly perspective that I wanted to conquer Pandora. The more pages I turned, the more I wondered: how can we inhabit Pandora through the law? If the conquest of this planet was accomplished, what legal challenges would we face… on Pandora and soon on Earth?

Let’s say it right off the bat: nothing has been planned. We do have the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, which states in Article II that outer space“is not subject to national appropriation” One might well infer that Pandora should be a res communis, a common good of humanity. However, the treaty applies to celestial bodies within the solar system: the small moon of Alpha Centauri is therefore outside its scope! But let’s assume: let’s assume that the treaty was expanded. That is where our conquest of Pandora would reveal the flaws in our current international environmental law (IEL).

Is humanity the center of its universe?

This law protects biodiversity, ecosystems, and the climate. On Earth, these entities are legal objects, not subjects. Yet oa planetary consciousness exists on Pandora: Eywa, which connects and maintains the balance of all life – a scientifically measurable planetary neural network. On Pandora, trees communicate via electrochemical connections. This is not an indigenous belief, but a scientific fact established by human xenobiologists. Hence this question for our Earth-based law: if the consciousness and intelligence of an ecosystem can be proven, does its legal status change? Does it remain an object? The IEL has no answer.

When tested against the reality of Pandora, human law could:

– recognize Eywa as a legal subject, which would imply an ontological revolution, given that law is built around humans (anthropocentrism) and not their environment (ecocentrism)

– or admit that a conscious system can be destroyed for economic interests, which would be an admission of powerlessness.

The powerlessness of the “Civilized”

On Pandora, our IEL reaches an impasse because it operates on a Westphalian model: 1) Sovereign States 2) negotiate treaties 3) and mutually monitor each other (soft law, diplomatic pressure). However, Pandora is not made up of states but of clans to which no sovereignty is recognized. There is no one to whom obligations can be imposed, no one to sanction. James Cameron demonstrates, indirectly, that the IEL presupposes the existence of “civilized nations” in the Westphalian sense, in the sense of law as reaffirmed at the Congress of Vienna in 1815. In other words, when faced with an actor who refuses to play by the rules, the system collapses. Which brings us back to Earth in 2025. There are countless examples of multinational corporations (beyond the control of states) that have severely damaged the environment without bearing the consequences. Chevron/Texaco, for example, dumped 18 billion liters of toxic waste in the Ecuadorian Amazon from 1964 to 1992. The oil company was ordered by a court in Ecuador to pay $9.5 billion; a sum that was never paid. Since Chevron no longer has any assets in Ecuador, the judgment is unenforceable. Ecuadorian environmental law, which is nevertheless one of the most advanced alongside the rights of the Pacha Mama, is powerless.

Rereading the Earth

Bringing human rights and Avatar together also reveals another very earthly problem: our conception of nature and other cultures. Modern Western culture is naturalistic; for it, nature is one and universal, and only humans possess consciousness and intentionality. But Perig Pitrou reminds us that other models exist: animism, totemism, analogism… How, then, can the IEL – built on a Western naturalist ontology (separation of nature and culture, nature-as-object) – be applied to conflicts involving actors grounded in incompatible ontologies? Answering this question would require crossing not just Avatar and anthropology, but anthropology and law. Legal anthropology already exists (Marie-Angèle Hermitte, Sarah Vanuxem…), but their work remains too marginal.

Listen to: Peter Pan and climate skepticism: why do people act like children? - CSR

Perig Pitrou’s book, aside from the clarity of his arguments, has the immense merit of raising “ fundamental problems of humanity ” without reducing them to current events. In doing so, it encourages researchers from other disciplines to engage with his work and continue the discussion; the themes explored indeed require input from numerous disciplines, including law and the anthropology of law. Conquering Pandora means reconquering Earth. And doing so through every possible lens. Here on Earth, in our own environment, this reinterpretation has become a necessity.