Pashukanis at Mount Polley: Law, eco-social relations and commodity forms

On August 4, 2014 the tailings pond failed at the Mount Polley copper, gold, and silver mine in British Columbia. The dam failure was amongst the largest recorded, and led to widespread debate in the province concerning weak environmental law and the effects of deregulation. This paper examines the changing role of the law in British Columbia around mining and the environment in relationship to the Mount Polley disaster. It draws on the work of the early Soviet legal theorist Evigny Pashukanis to help understand law's role in the commodification of nature. Pashukanis suggests a legal analysis of the commodity form and a study of laws role in commodification. However, contemporary law departs from the rigid and formal property and contract principles that Pashukanis considered, and now responds to shifting social conditions, technologies and environmental concern. Yet even today, Pashukanis remains relevant, and provides a starting point for analysis of how nature is commodified. His work points to a study of the multiplicities of, and variegated legal geographies of, commodity forms.