Earth system scientists suggest we might be entering the Anthropocene, a new geological epoch, where humans have become a global geophysical force, dominating and changing the Earth system. While the Anthropocene must still be officially designated as such, it has since become a useful discursive framework that now occupies a central position in the sustainability discourse. In fact, the Anthropocene has become an important, if not entirely uncontentious, issue permeating the many multidisciplinary conversations that grapple with the place and future of humans as part of the Earth system. Originally emanating from the domain of natural sciences, the Anthropocene has now also become a focus of social sciences and the humanities, evidenced in particular by its recent inclusion as one of the four contextual conditions of the new Science and Implementation Plan of the Earth System Governance Project (the others are transformations, inequality and diversity). Curiously, however, when compared to the geosciences and the Earth system governance research agendas, the Anthropocene remains largely underexplored in the juridical domain, with only a few lawyers having interrogated its implications for law and legal science generally, and for environmental law specifically. Those of us that are investigating the relationship between the Anthropocene and law broadly agree that law is a critical element of the human–political–social system, and an important part of those social regulatory institutions that humans consciously design to establish and maintain a specific type of desired social order. This is increasingly an order that is being destabilized by Earth system changes, as the impacts of climate change on societies across the globe clearly suggest. The Anthropocene is therefore critically relevant to law and legal science, while conversely, law has an important role to play in contemplating and ensuring Earth system integrity and future life on Earth.