Environmental Justice in World Politics

Year 2009, Volume: 8 Issue: 1, 59 - 84, 16.02.2009

Özgüç Orhan

Abstract

All environmental problems in one way or another are involved in the question of justice. The concept of
“environmental justice” has been in circulation for some time underlining the justice dimension of
environmental issues. Given the globalization of environmental problems since 1970s, the environmental
justice discourse has been increasingly used to frame various international or global environmental issues
like toxic waste trade, ozone depletion, biodiversity protection, and global warming.1 There is now quite a
number of phrases that can help us to think environmental justice outside state borders: “global
environmental justice,” “transnational environmental justice,” “international environmental justice,” and
“international environmental equity.”2 Environmental scholars using these terms often fail to draw
meaningful distinctions among them. I argue that this multiplicity of phrases signifies more than an
inadvertent inflation of terminology. The terminological diversity we encounter in IR literature actually
corresponds to different modes of environmental justice in world politics.

Keywords

-

References

• Achterberg, Wouter. “Environmental Justice and Global Democracy,” In Governing the Environment: Global Problems, Ethics and Democracy, edited by Brendan Gleeson and Nicholas Low, 183-195. Palgrave Macmillan, 2001.
• Bandy, Joe. “Reterritorializing Borders: Transnational Environmental Justice Movements on the US
• Mexico Border,” Race, Gender, and Class Vol. 5.1(1997): 80-103.
• Basel Action Network. “The Basel Ban – A Triumph for Global Environmental Justice,” Briefing Paper No. 1 (May 2003).
• Beierle, Thomas C. and Jerry Cayford. Public Participation in Environmental Decisions: Lessons from the Case Study Record. Washington, D.C.: Resources for the Future, 2002.
• Beitz, Charles R. “International Liberalism and Distributive Justice: A Survey of Recent Thought,” World Politics Vol. 51.2(1999): 269-296.
• Bosselmann, Klaus. “Human Rights and the Environment: Redefining Fundamental Principles?” In Governing the Environment: Global Problems, Ethics and Democracy, edited by Brendan Gleeson and Nicholas Low, 118-34. Palgrave Macmillan, 2001.
• Caney, Simon. “Cosmopolitan Justice and Cultural Diversity,” Global Society 14.4(2000): 525- 51.
• Clapp, Jennifer. “Africa, NGO, and the International Toxic Waste Trade,” Journal of Environment & Development 3.2(1994): 17-46.
• Conca, Ken. “Rethinking the Ecology-Sovereignty Debate,” Millennium 23.3 (1994): 701-11.
• Conklin, Beth A. and Laura R. Graham. “The Shifting Middle Ground: Amazonian Indians and Eco-Politics,” American Anthropologist 97.4 (1995): 695-710.
• Davies, Peter. “Public Participation, the Aarhus Convention, and the European Community.” In Human Rights in Natural Resource Development: Public Participation in the Sustainable Development of Mining and Energy Resources, edited by Donald N. Zillman et. al., 155-185. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002.
• Dejeant-Pons, Maguelonne and Marc Pallemaerts. Human Rights and the Environment. Strasbourg: Council of Europe Publishing, 2002.
• Dryzek, John. The Politics of the Earth: Environmental Discourses. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997.
• Faber, Daniel. “Building a Transnational Environmental Justice Movement: Obstacles and Opportunities in the Age of Globalization.” In Coalitions Across Borders: Negotiating Difference and Unity in Transnational Struggles Against Neoliberalism, edited by Joe Bandy & Jackie Smith. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2003.
• Gewirth, Alan. “Ethical Universalism and Particularism,” The Journal of Philosophy 85.6(1988):
• Greenpeace. 2001. “Partners in Mahogany Crime.” Available at http://archive.greenpeace.org/forests/reports/Mahoganyweb.pdf
• Grubb, Michael. “Seeking Fair Weather: Ethics and the International Debate on Climate Change,” International Affairs 71.3(1995): 463-96.
• Halvorssen, Anita Margrethe. Equality Among Unequals in International Environmental Law: Differential Treatment for Developing Countries. Boulder: Westview Press, 1999.
• Harris, Paul G. “Defining International Distributive justice: Environmental Considerations,” International Relations, Vol. 15.2(2000): 51-66.
• _____. International Equity and Global Environmental Politics: Power and Principles in U.S. Foreign Policy. Burlington: Ashgate, 2001.
• Held, David. 1998. “Democracy and Globalization.” In Re-Imagining Political Community: Studies in Cosmopolitan Democracy, edited by Daniele Archibugi et al., 11-27. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1998.
• Hempel, Lamont C. Environmental Governance: The Global Challenge. Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 1996.
• Hornborg, Alf. “Towards an Ecological Theory of Unequal Exchange: Articulating World System Theory and Ecological Economics,” Ecological Economics 25 (1998): 127-136.
• Jamieson, Dale. 1994. “Global Environmental Justice.” In Philosophy and the Natural Environment, edited by Robin Attfield and Andrew Belsey, 199-210. New York: Cambridge University Press.
• Keck, Margaret E. and Kathryn Sikkink. Activists Beyond Borders: Advocacy Networks and International Politics. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1998.
• Keohane, Robert O. and Joseph S. Nye, Jr. “Governance in a globalizing world.” In Power and Governance in a Partially Globalized World, edited by Robert O. Keohane, and Joseph S. Nye, Jr.193-218. New York: Routledge, 2002.
• _____. “Transnational Relations and World Politics: An Introduction,” International Organization 25.3 (1971): 329-349.
• _____., ed. Transnational Relations and World Politics. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1972.
• Kolbasov, Oleg. “International Environmental Justice: Concept and Role,” Environmental Policy & Law 27.4 (1997): 284-287.
• Krasner, Stephen D. “Abiding Sovereignty,” International Political Science Review 22.3(2001):
• Li, Quan and Rafael Reuveny. “Economic Globalization and Democracy: An Empirical Analysis,” British Journal of Political Science 33 (2003): 29-54.
• Litfin, Karen T. “Sovereignty in World Ecopolitics,” Mershon International Studies Review 41.2 (1997): 167-204.
• Low, Nicholas and Brendan Gleeson. Justice, Society and Nature. New York: Routledge, 1998.
• Martinez-Alier, Joan. The Environmentalism of the Poor: A Study of Ecological Conflicts and Valuation. Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar, 2002.
• Miller, Marian A.L. The Third World in Global Environmental Politics. Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 1995.
• Paterson, Matthew. “International Justice and Global Warming.” In The Ethical Dimensions of Global Change, edited by Barry Holden, 181-201. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1996.
• Paterson, Matthew, David Humphreys and Lloyd Pettiford. “Conceptualizing Global Environmental Governance: From Interstate Regimes to Counter-Hegemonic Struggles,” Global Environmental Politics Vol. 2.2(2003): 1-10.
• Patomäki, Heikki. “The Tobin Tax: A New Phase in the Politics of Globalization?” Theory, Culture and Society Vol. 17.4(2000): 77-91.
• Payne, Rodger A. “The Limits and Promise of Environmental Conflict Prevention: The Case of the GEF,” Journal of Peace Research 35.3(1998): 363-380.
• Porter, Gareth and Janet W. Brown. Global Environmental Politics. Boulder: Westview Press, 1991.
• Rich, Bruce. Mortgaging the Earth: The World Bank Environmental Impoverishment and the Crisis of Development. Boston: Beacon Press, 1994.
• Rosenau, James & Ernst-Otto Czempiel. Ed. Governance without Government: Order and Change in World Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992.
• Sachs, Aaaron. Eco-Justice: Linking Human Rights and the Environment. Worldwatch Paper 127, 1995.
• Shapiro, Ian and Brilmayer, Lea. ed. Global Justice. New York: New York University Press, 1999.
• Shiva, Vandana. 1999. “Ecological Balance in an Era of Globalization.” In Global Ethics and Environment, edited by Nicholas Low, 47-69. Routledge. London.
• Shue, Henry. 1992. “The Unavoidability of Justice.” In The International Politics of the Environment: Actors, Interests, and Institutions, edited by Andrew Hurrell & Benedict Kingsbury, 373-397. Oxford: Clarendon Press
• _____. Basic Rights: Subsistence, Affluence and U.S. Foreign Policy. 2nd Edition. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1996.
• _____. “Global Environment and international Inequality,” International Affairs 75.3 (1999): 531-45.
• Smith, W.H. “Justice: National, International or Global?” In Moral Claims in World Affairs, edited by Ralph Pettman, 92-114. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1979.
• Streck, Charlotte. “The Global Environmental Facility – a Role Model for International Governance,” Global Environmental Politics Vol. 1.2(2001): 71-94.
• Tolba, Mostafa K. Global Environmental Justice. Nairobi, Kenya: UNEP, 1989.
• Walzer, Michael. Thick and Thin: Moral Argument at Home and Abroad. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1994.
• Wapner, Paul. “Politics Beyond the State: Environmental Activism and World Civic Politics,” World Politics 47 (April 1995): 311-340.
• _____. “World Summit on Sustainable Development: Toward a Post-Jo’Burg Environmentalism,” Global Environmental Politics 3.1(2003): 1-10.
• Yokota, Yozo. “International Justice and the Global Environment,” Journal of International Affairs 52.2 (1999): 583-598.
• Young, Oran. “Environmental Ethics in International Society.” In Ethics and International Affairs: Extent and Limits, edited by Jean-Marc Coicaud & Daniel Warner, 161-193. New York: United Nations University Press, 2001.
• Zerner, Charles, ed. People, Plants & Justice: The Politics of Nature Conservation. New York: Columbia University Press, 2000.
• Zillman, Donald N., Alastair R. Lucas and George R. Pring, ed. Human Rights in Natural Resource Development: Public Participation in the Sustainable Development of Mining and Energy Resources. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002.