Environmental Justice, Human Rights, and the Global South
From the Ogoni people devastated by oil drilling in Nigeria to the Inuit and other indigenous populations threatened by climate change, communities disparately burdened by environmental degradation are increasingly framing their demands for environmental justice in the language of environmental huma...
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ftseattleunivlaw:oai:digitalcommons.law.seattleu.edu:faculty-1631 2023-05-15T16:55:17+02:00 Environmental Justice, Human Rights, and the Global South Gonzalez, Carmen 2015-01-01T08:00:00Z application/pdf https://digitalcommons.law.seattleu.edu/faculty/631 https://digitalcommons.law.seattleu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1631&context=faculty unknown Seattle University School of Law Digital Commons https://digitalcommons.law.seattleu.edu/faculty/631 https://digitalcommons.law.seattleu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1631&context=faculty Faculty Scholarship Environmental Law Human Rights Law text 2015 ftseattleunivlaw 2022-05-30T11:29:22Z From the Ogoni people devastated by oil drilling in Nigeria to the Inuit and other indigenous populations threatened by climate change, communities disparately burdened by environmental degradation are increasingly framing their demands for environmental justice in the language of environmental human rights. Domestic and international tribunals have concluded that failure to protect the environment violates a variety of human rights (including the rights to life, health, food, water, property, and privacy; the collective rights of indigenous peoples to their ancestral lands and resources; and the right to a healthy environment). Some scholars have questioned the utility of the human rights framework given the diminished governance capacity of many Third World states due to decades of intervention by international financial institutions and restrictions imposed by trade and investment agreements. Others have expressed doubts about the ability of human rights law to adequately articulate and advance the aspirations and resistance strategies of diverse grassroots social justice movements, and have warned about the susceptibility of human rights law and discourse to co-optation by powerful states to advance their own economic and political interests (for example, through “humanitarian intervention” in Third World states). This article examines the promise and the peril of environmental human rights as a means of challenging environmental injustice within nations as well as the North-South dimension of environmental injustice. Drawing a distinction between human rights discourse as a tool of popular mobilization and human rights law as codified in legal instruments and enforced by international institutions, the article examines some of the limitations of human rights law as an instrument of resistance to environmental injustice and offers several strategies to enhance its emancipatory potential. Text inuit Seattle University School of Law: Digital Commons |
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Environmental Law Human Rights Law |
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Environmental Law Human Rights Law Gonzalez, Carmen Environmental Justice, Human Rights, and the Global South |
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From the Ogoni people devastated by oil drilling in Nigeria to the Inuit and other indigenous populations threatened by climate change, communities disparately burdened by environmental degradation are increasingly framing their demands for environmental justice in the language of environmental human rights. Domestic and international tribunals have concluded that failure to protect the environment violates a variety of human rights (including the rights to life, health, food, water, property, and privacy; the collective rights of indigenous peoples to their ancestral lands and resources; and the right to a healthy environment). Some scholars have questioned the utility of the human rights framework given the diminished governance capacity of many Third World states due to decades of intervention by international financial institutions and restrictions imposed by trade and investment agreements. Others have expressed doubts about the ability of human rights law to adequately articulate and advance the aspirations and resistance strategies of diverse grassroots social justice movements, and have warned about the susceptibility of human rights law and discourse to co-optation by powerful states to advance their own economic and political interests (for example, through “humanitarian intervention” in Third World states). This article examines the promise and the peril of environmental human rights as a means of challenging environmental injustice within nations as well as the North-South dimension of environmental injustice. Drawing a distinction between human rights discourse as a tool of popular mobilization and human rights law as codified in legal instruments and enforced by international institutions, the article examines some of the limitations of human rights law as an instrument of resistance to environmental injustice and offers several strategies to enhance its emancipatory potential. |
format |
Text |
author |
Gonzalez, Carmen |
author_facet |
Gonzalez, Carmen |
author_sort |
Gonzalez, Carmen |
title |
Environmental Justice, Human Rights, and the Global South |
title_short |
Environmental Justice, Human Rights, and the Global South |
title_full |
Environmental Justice, Human Rights, and the Global South |
title_fullStr |
Environmental Justice, Human Rights, and the Global South |
title_full_unstemmed |
Environmental Justice, Human Rights, and the Global South |
title_sort |
environmental justice, human rights, and the global south |
publisher |
Seattle University School of Law Digital Commons |
publishDate |
2015 |
url |
https://digitalcommons.law.seattleu.edu/faculty/631 https://digitalcommons.law.seattleu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1631&context=faculty |
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inuit |
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inuit |
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Faculty Scholarship |
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https://digitalcommons.law.seattleu.edu/faculty/631 https://digitalcommons.law.seattleu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1631&context=faculty |
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