The Law Of Environmental Justice

Environmental justice is the concept that minority and low-income individuals, communities and populations should not be disproportionately exposed to environmental hazards, and that they should share fully in making the decisions that affect their environment. This volume examines the sources of environmental justice law and how evolving regulations and court decisions impact projects around the country.

Environmental justice is a significant and dynamic contemporary development in environmental law. Rechtschaffen, Gauna and new coauthor O'Neill provide an accessible compilation of interdisciplinary materials for studying environmental justice, interspersed with extensive notes, questions, and a teacher's manual with practice exercises designed to facilitate classroom discussion. It integrates excerpts from empirical studies, cases, agency decisions, informal agency guidance, law reviews, and other academic literature, as well as community-generated documents. This second edition includes new chapters addressing climate change, international environmental justice, and a capstone case study. It also adds expanded coverage of risk and the public health, empirical environmental justice research, and environmental justice for American Indian peoples.

Environmental risks and harms affect certain geographic areas and populations more than others. The environmental justice movement is aimed at having the public and private sectors address this disproportionate burden of risk and exposure to pollution in minority and/or low-income communities, and for those communities to be engaged in the decision-making processes. Environmental Justice provides an overview of this defining problem and explores the growth of the environmental justice movement. It analyzes the complex mixture of environmental laws and civil rights legal theories adopted in environmental justice litigation. Teachers will have online access to the more than 100 page Teachers Manual.

The traditional concept of social justice is increasingly being challenged by the notion of a humankind that spans current and future generations. This book, with a foreword by Roger Brownsword, is the first systematic examination of how the rights of the unborn and future generations are handled in common law and under international legal instruments. It provides comprehensive coverage of the arguments over international legal instruments, key legal cases and examples including the Convention on the Rights of the Child, industrial disasters, clean water provision, diet, HIV/AIDS, environmental racism and climate change. Also covered are international agreements and objectives as diverse as the Kyoto Protocol, the Millennium Development Goals and international trade. The result is the most controversial and thorough examination to date of the subject and the enormous ramifications and challenges it poses to every aspect of international and domestic environmental, human rights, trade and public health law and policy.

"With connections to traditional homelands being at the heart of Native identity, environmental justice is of heightened importance to Indigenous communities. Not only do irresponsible and exploitative environmental policies harm the physical and financial health of Indigenous communities, they also cause spiritual harm by destroying the land and wildlife that are held in a place of exceptional reverence for Indigenous peoples. Combining elements of legal issues, human rights issues, and sovereignty issues, Indigenous Environmental Justice creates a clear example of community resilience in the face of corporate greed"--

Cole (director, California Rural Legal Assistance Foundation's Center on Race, Poverty, and the Environment) and Foster (law, Rutgers University) examine the movement for environmental justice in the United States. Tracing the movement's roots and illustrating the historical and contemporary causes of environmental racism, they combine their analysis with a narrative account of struggles from around the country--including those in Kettleman City, California, Chester, Pennsylvania, and Dilkon, Arizona. In so doing, they consider the transformative effects this movement has had on individuals, communities, and environmental policy. Annotation copyrighted by Book News Inc., Portland, OR

This thoughtful book provides an overview of the major developments in the theory and practice of Ôenvironmental justiceÕ. It illustrates the direction of the evolution of rights of nature and exposes the diverse meanings and practical uses of the conc

political science and international relations." --Book Jacket.