Environmental Justice

Institutionalization of Racial Inequality in Local Political Geographies

by Ann Moss Joyner

Mozambique:¿ Cahora Bassa para quién?

by Gualter Barbas Baptista

Environmental Justice Implications of Maritime Spatial Planning In the European Union

by Elizabeth De Santo

This paper examines the implications of environmental justice in the regime for Maritime Spatial Planning (MSP)... more This paper examines the implications of environmental justice in the regime for Maritime Spatial Planning (MSP) currently developing in the European Union (EU).  An ‘ecosystem-based approach’ to marine management is enshrined in the new Integrated Maritime Policy and Marine Strategy Framework Directive and forms the basis of MSP. This concept is intended to encompass all aspects of an ecosystem, including the human element. Yet the modes of including meaningful public participation in the decision-making process for MSP remain undetermined.  At the same time, the Aarhus Convention (on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision Making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters) empowers non-governmental organisations to hold EU Member States to account. Consequently the issue of transparency will gain increased importance, as will linkages between human and environmental rights. Such public interest-based activism on the part of NGOs has the potential to enforce the developing framework for stakeholder engagement within MSP, but it also has implications worth considering regarding the appropriate role of interest-based organizations in the international political arena.

Fortress conservation at sea: a commentary on the Chagos Marine Protected Area

by Elizabeth De Santo

Co-authored with Peter JS Jones and Alice MM Miller

The world’s largest no-take Marine Protected Area in Chagos is examined in light of the Convention on Biological... more The world’s largest no-take Marine Protected Area in Chagos is examined in light of the Convention on Biological Diversity’s provisions on Access and Benefit Sharing, as well as terrestrial experiences with fortress conservation. It is acknowledged that this closure presents a unique opportunity to preserve an ecologically ‘pristine’ area. However, the means by which the political process unfolded are brought into question. In particular, the fact that the UK proceeded with designating the area whilst the European Court of Human Rights was deliberating the right of native Chagossians to return to the island is questioned. In addition it is argued that the scale of the area poses significant management and enforcement challenges, which are not necessarily taken into consideration in the rush for large, no-take
Marine Protected Areas.

Afterword -- Occupy Education: Learning and Living Sustainability by Tina Lynn Evans (Peter Lang, 2012)

by Richard Kahn

Forthcoming book. Order one today!

A kind of manifesto statement on the current state of the so-called socio-cultural turn in environmental education and... more A kind of manifesto statement on the current state of the so-called socio-cultural turn in environmental education and the ecological turn in critical pedagogy, as both move to frameworks of decolonization and hopeful dialogue and solidarity with sovereignty activists and indigenous scholars/educators. A call for hope in the form of the "wild jeremiad" is issued.

The environmental justice implications of utility privatisation: the case of the electricity supply in Bulgaria's Roma settlements

by Rosalinа Babourkova

The study explores the environmental justice implications of the privatisation of utilities through the case of... more The study explores the environmental justice implications of the privatisation of utilities through the case of electricity supply in two Roma settlements in Bulgaria. A case-specific analytical framework for envi- ronmental justice is developed, combining three central notions of justice theory: distribution, recognition and participation. The legality of construction, equity in access and the presence of an accountable regula- tory regime are further identified as aspects of distribution important to the case. The study concludes that a sound regulatory environment and strong community organisation and representation are integral to ensuring that privatisation of utilities complies with the principles of environmental justice.

Development Against Freedom and Sustainability

by Debal Deb

Global common resources and the just distribution of emission shares

by Megan Blomfield

Published in 'Journal of Political Philosophy'

A currently popular proposal for fairly distributing emission quotas is the equal shares view, which holds that that... more A currently popular proposal for fairly distributing emission quotas is the equal shares view, which holds that that emission quotas should be distributed to all human beings globally on an equal per capita basis. In this paper I aim to show that a number of arguments in favour of equal shares are based on a misleading analysis of climate change as a global commons problem. I argue that a correct understanding of the way in which climate change results from the overuse of a global commons shows those who defend equal shares using commons arguments to be harbouring more controversial commitments than might at first appear. I then discuss two options for equal shares theorists who wish to maintain the view in the face of my critique, and attempt to show that one approach holds more promise than the other.

Developing Anti-Racist Ethics

by Toi Scott

Report on community-based participatory research, environmental justice and anti-racist ethics

Developing Anti-Racist Ethics

by Toi Scott

Report on community-based participatory research, environmental justice and anti-racist ethics

Highway Expansion Effects on Urban Racial Redistribution in the Post—Civil Rights Period

by Guangqing Chi

Should environmental issues be securitised?

by Owais Rajput

Environmental issues
The variables that have defined national security for the most part of the World’s history... more Environmental issues
The variables that have defined national security for the most part of the World’s history have largely been military in nature. Security was primarily made up of the physical defence of the country, its people and whatever they possessed. Profound factors outside the traditional area of military operations have been realised that could affect the securities of many countries.
It is within this background that environmental issues have raised to importance, and the term ‘Environmental Security’ has entered the language of environmentalists, policy makers and security planners. With the ending of the cold war, the usual concepts of the nature of national security and the methods to achieve it have changed. The global powers at the time were engaged in military containment of each other, as in the case of America and the Soviet Union containment of each other.

Reterritorializing Borders: Transnational Environmental Justice Movements on the U.S./Mexico Border

by Joe Bandy

Race, Gender, and Class. 5(1):80-103. 1997.

The border could represent a looking glass in which we see what the project of neoliberalism envisions for all of the... more The border could represent a looking glass in which we see what the project of neoliberalism envisions for all of the Americas. Yet amongst these absurdities are emerging movements whose scope of political interest and practice of coalition are promising moments of a broad resistance to neoliberalism, enabled by the unique opportunities for a critical transnationalism that the border affords, and by the expansive critiques environmental justice can bring to bear on the crises of development. At a time when national borders seem ever more permeable, it is no accident that political borders of class, gender, and ethnicity seem ever more impregnable. But because of regional development regimes that highlight the borderless qualities of our natural environment and our transnational economy, and the coalitional practices that seem to result from their affinities to discourses of radical democracy and eco-populism, these movements have created a wide culture of solidarity in the struggles against the everyday consequences of an intensified, hemispheric political conflict.

Bordering the future: resisting neoliberalism in the borderlands

by Joe Bandy

Critical Sociology. 26:3. 2000.

In the last twenty years, and especially since NAFTA, the U.S.-Mexico border has been a site of intensive neoliberal... more In the last twenty years, and especially since NAFTA, the U.S.-Mexico border has been a site of intensive neoliberal development, particularly in the growth of 2,340 export-processing plants (maquiladoras), ninety percent U.S.-owned. The economic growth this has helped to promote has been both rapid and uneven, and the burdens it has placed on local communities through impoverished conditions of work and life have been immense – no where more so than in Tijuana. Although much of this growth and the associated social and environmental problems have been the subjects of many policy, academic, and journalistic discussions, Tijuana’s local community organizations, which have attempted to meet local needs and formulate alternative development paradigms, have not. Based on interviews with community organization representatives in the San Diego/Tijuana region, this text argues that a more complete understanding of these movement efforts to resist neoliberalism, especially the alternative visions for development they construct, are crucial to any understanding of neoliberalism generally, transnational social movements, and more democratic labor and environmental policy. These alternative paradigms differ radically from those promoted by capital and states on both sides of la frontera, and potentially offer a more participatory, democratic, and sustainable form of transnational development, for Mexico and all of North America.

Justice spatiale et bassins hydrographiques: distribution des couts, des benefices et du risque

by Francois Molle

Draft version for: 49. Molle, F. 2012. Justice spatiale et bassins hydrographiques: distribution des couts, des benefices et du risque. In "Justice et Injustices" spatiales edited by Bret, B., Blanchon, D., Hancock, C. et Landy, F. Presses Universitaires de Paris.

Rethinking "Green"” Multicultural Strategies

by Beenash Jafri

In Speaking for Ourselves: Environmental Justice in Canada. Eds Julian Agyeman, Peter Cole, Randolph Haluza-DeLay and Pat O'Riley.

Green Is Not the Only Colour: Reflections on the State of Anti-Racist Environmentalism in Canada

by Beenash Jafri

Co-authored with Karen Okamoto. Published in Briarpatch Magazine (Dec 2007/Jan 2008).

Mediterranean agriculture under climate change: adaptive capacity, adaptation, and ethics

by Giuseppe Feola

with M. Grasso, in Regional Environmental Change, available in pre-print version here: http://centaur.reading.ac.uk/25989/

In the coming decades, the Mediterranean region is expected to experience various climate impacts with negative... more In the coming decades, the Mediterranean region is expected to experience various climate impacts with negative consequences on agricultural systems and which will cause uneven reductions in agricultural production. By and large, the impacts of climate change on Mediterranean agriculture will be heavier for southern areas of the region. This unbalanced distribution of negative impacts underscores the significance and role of ethics in such a context of analysis. Consequently, the aim of this article is to justify and develop an ethical approach to agricultural adaptation in the Mediterranean and to derive the consequent implications for adaptation policy in the region. In particular, we define an index of adaptive capacity for the agricultural systems of the Mediterranean region on whose basis it is possible to group its different sub-regions, and we provide an overview of the suitable adaptation actions and policies for the sub-regions identified. We then vindicate and put forward an ethical approach to agricultural adaptation, highlighting the implications for the Mediterranean region and the limitations of such an ethical framework. Finally, we emphasize the broader potential of ethics for agricultural adaptation policy.

Health, wealth and ways of life: What can we learn from the Swedish, US and UK experience? Overview

by Giovanni Leonardi

Please cite this article in press as:
Curtis, S., & Leonardi, G. S., Health, wealth and ways of life: What can we learn from the Swedish, US and UK experience? Overview,
Social Science & Medicine (2012),
doi:10.1016/j.socscimed.2011.12.004

Sarah Curtis*
Professor of Health and Risk, Durham University, UK
* Corresponding author. Tel.: þ44 (0)2078825400.
E-mail addresses: s.e.curtis@durham.ac.uk,
ssm.editor@durham.ac.uk

Giovanni S. Leonardi
President of the Epidemiology & Public Health Section, Royal Society of Medicine, UK
Head of Epidemiology Department, Health Protection Agency Centre for Radiation, Chemical and Environmental Hazards, UK
Honorary Senior Lecturer, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, UK
E-mail address: giovanni.leonardi@hpa.org.uk


This paper provides an overview of commentaries based on contributions to a conference on "Health, wealth and ways of life - what can we learn from the Swedish, US and UK experience?" organised by the Royal Society of Medicine with participation of its Epidemiology & Public Health Section, and New York Academy of Medicine and Swedish Society of Medicine, and held at the Royal Society of Medicine, 1 Wimpole Street, London on 23 - 24 September 2010. The proceedings were published in Social Science and Medicine as a commentary set:

Desai, M., et al., (2012) Health, wealth and ways of life: What can we learn from the Swedish, US and UK experience? Introduction to the commentaries, Social Science & Medicine (2012), doi:10.1016/j.socscimed.2011.12.012

Bartley, M. (2012) The search for an explanation of health inequality. (Commentary). Social Science & Medicine,
doi:10.1016/j.socscimed.2011.12.015.

Berkman, L.F. (2012) United States – challenges of economic and demographic trends.(Commentary). Social Science & Medicine, doi:10.1016/j.socscimed.2011.12.007.

Braveman, P. (2012) Health Inequalities by class and race in the US: what can we learn from the patterns? (Commentary). Social Science & Medicine, doi:10.1016/j.socscimed.2011.12.009.

Bremberg, S. (2012) The Swedish perspective–a puzzle. (Commentary). Social Science & Medicine, doi:10.1016/j.socscimed.2011.12.002.

Burström, B. (2012) Sweden – socioeconomic factors and health. (Commentary). Social Science & Medicine, doi:10.1016/j.socscimed.2011.12.010.

Calltorp, J.(2012) How can our health systems be re-engineered to meet the future challenges? The Swedish experience. (Commentary). Social Science & Medicine, doi:10.1016/j.socscimed.2011.12.003.

Haines, A. (2012) Sustainable policies to improve health and prevent climate change. (Commentary). Social Science & Medicine, doi:10.1016/j.socscimed.2011.12.008.

Halfon, N. (2012) Addressing health inequalities in the US: a life course health
development approach. (Commentary). Social Science & Medicine, doi:10.1016/j.socscimed.2011.12.016.

Kaplan, G.A. (2012) Economic crises: some thoughts on why, when and where they (might) matter for health. A tale of three countries (Commentary). Social Science & Medicine, doi:10.1016/j.socscimed.2011.12.013.

Kristenson, M. (2012) Impact of socioeconomic determinants on psychosocial factors and lifestyle - implications for health services. The Swedish experience. (Commentary). Social Science & Medicine, doi:10.1016/j.socscimed.2011.12.014.

McKee, M., Basu, S., Stuckler, D. (2012) Health systems, health and wealth: the argument for investment applies now more than ever. (Commentary). Social Science & Medicine, doi:10.1016/j.socscimed.2011.12.006.

Suhrcke, M., Stuckler, D. (2012) Will the recession be bad for our health? It depends. (Commentary). Social Science & Medicine, doi:10.1016/j.socscimed.2011.12.011.

Wilensky, G. (2012) Re-engineering health systems: the U.S. experience. (Commentary). Social Science & Medicine, doi:10.1016/j.socscimed.2011.12.005.

Conservation Efforts, National Parks and the Indigenous Hill Tribes of Northern Thailand: An Examination of the Region's Historical Conflicts and Current Rights-Based Approaches

by Shalana Gray

It is no doubt that Thailand's precious biodiversity is under threat, but a historical overview of past coercive... more It is no doubt that Thailand's precious biodiversity is under threat, but a historical overview of past coercive conservation tactics prove many of these policies to be inhumane and ineffective. The Karen Hill Tribe of northern Thailand has been negatively effected by wildlife conservation for decades, often experiencing a number of financial, health and social costs. However, more recent conservation policies embrace rights-based approaches that encourage more community involvement and local benefits regarding wildlife preservation.