La désobéissance civile écologique face au système répressif : une approche interdisciplinaire au croisement du droit pénal, du droit de l'environnement et de la sociologie du droit
(2026)
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- (en) This dissertation examines civil disobedience in the context of the ecological emergency (hereafter: ecological civil disobedience) at the intersection of criminal law (the legal justification of ecological citizen mobilisations), environmental law (climate litigation), and the sociology of law (legal representations and uses of law by actors). Adopting an interdisciplinary lens, it analyses how actors mobilise the law throughout the repressive system, from the public sphere to criminal courts and administrative bodies, in actions and cases involving ecological civil disobedience. The research focuses on the Belgian context while drawing on targeted comparisons with France and Switzerland. Methodologically, it falls within Empirical Legal Studies or empirical legal research, relying on qualitative material from literature and documentary sources (1), twenty‑seven interviews with relevant actors (activists, legal teams, lawyers, prosecutors, judges, sanctioning officials, and police officers) (2), and several sequences of participant observation (in the public space, within a legal team, and inside courtrooms) (3). The dissertation shows how these actors invoke and manipulate legal registers when confronted with ecological civil disobedience. In doing so, it highlights the existence of a spectrum of approaches to ecological civil disobedience, mobilised differently across the repressive system depending on actors’ opportunities, room for manoeuvre, and constraints. While actors within the repressive apparatus (judges, prosecutors, sanctioning officials) largely adopt conservative or liberal readings of civil disobedience, activists, lawyers, and legal teams are more inclined to frame it in democratic or political terms, or even, in some cases, through a radical lens justified by a critical view of power. This conceptualisation of a spectrum of approaches provides a broader analytical framework for understanding the processes through which criminal law becomes permeable—or impermeable—to the ecological emergency, both in relation to other branches of law (public, international, environmental, etc.) and to other disciplines (sociology, political theory, philosophy, natural sciences, etc.). In doing so, the dissertation sheds light on the relationship between criminal law and the ecological emergency, opening concrete perspectives for legal actors and offering epistemological foundations for new scientific developments in repressive, criminal, and administrative law.
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Jadoul, M. (2026). La désobéissance civile écologique face au système répressif : une approche interdisciplinaire au croisement du droit pénal, du droit de l’environnement et de la sociologie du droit. https://hdl.handle.net/2078.5/275987