Justice and Environment Essay ⋆ Environment Essay Examples ⋆ EssayEmpire

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Justice , like so many political, legal, and theological terms, has always challenged some of the best minds in the world. It is a key concept that plays a major role in the thinking of ethicists, human rights, natural law, and procedural law. And it is an elusive concept that is very difficult to define precisely. Fundamentally, it is the moral principle that a person should receive the type of treatment that he or she deserves.

Most people can easily recognize numerous actions that can be considered unjust. Injustice evokes anger at unfair treatment of either themselves or of another. However, even here, unfair treatment will evoke different responses depending upon what a person feels to be unfair.

Injustice is seen as a departure from a naturally occurring moral order. In Western civilization, concepts of natural justice or divine justice have been the grounds or inspiration for developing numerous moral concepts. Similar notions of a cosmic moral law expressive of justice are to be found around the world. In all cases they involve ideas of fair treatment. To some are due rewards and to some are due punishments, but in all cases fairly delivered.

As a theory of moral deserts, justice is the foundation of ethical judgments. In short, it is a system of rewards and punishments that are designed to fit the actions of those receiving justice. This should apply to the ethical theory that is the foundation of legal and social systems. It often does not.

In the case of justice and the environment, there are a range of views over what is and what is not justice. And these lie at the heart of what a state should establish in its governing of the relations between people.

In relations between people, there have always been resource disputes over land, forests, water, minerals, or other aspects of nature or over the right to access. Historically, nature has been conceived as a commodity. However, the advent of the environmental movement has added a new element to the idea of justice, namely environmental justice. The concern is over the right use of nature.

Environmental Justice

Historically, for many in Western civilization, the creation mandate in the Book of Genesis (Gen.1:28) has been a passage that called for dominion over the earth and it creatures. However, the passage has also been interpreted as a obligation to exercise stewardship as a responsible ethic. This type of ethic has been brought to the public forum by environmental activists who are seeking to establish relationships between modern industrial society and the remnants of unspoiled nature, or demands for the restoration of spoiled nature.

Justice can be distributive when some authority acts to allocate available resources. Justice can also be remedial when it acts to remedy wrongs by restoring what was lost. Justice can also be preventative when it acts as a form of equity to prevent irreparable harms from taking place.

There are a range of definitions for environmental justice that go beyond the mere impact of environmental conditions such as the impact of pollution. In 1991 the People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit adopted “Principles of Environmental Justice.” The “Principles” covered many topics but added racism to its definition. Others have added environmental socioeconomic status, classism, environmental racism, environmental and environmental equity.

The National Governors Association uses a definition that focuses on protecting minority and low-income communities from having to bear a disproportionate share of pollution. A different definition has been adopted by the Board of Trustees of Environmental Defense, which operates a “Scorecard.” The type of justice sought by environmentalists is preventative and remedial. It has been institutionalized in current American law as the fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people irrespective of race, color, national origin or other qualification in the development of environmental policies, laws, and regulations.

Environmental Protection Agency

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has set this as its policy goal so that the environment may be protected, health hazards may be prevented, and equal access to both natural resources and to the decision-making process about the environment. In order to implement its policy, the EPA created the Office of Environmental Justice in 1992. Its goal was to integrated environmental justice into EPA’s policies, programs, and activities. On September 30, 1993 the EPA established the National Environmental Justice Advisory Council (NEJAC). The council was created as a forum for academics, the community, environmental groups, industry, and indigenous peoples, and also for the state, local, and tribal governments, who are all stakeholders in the environment. NEJAC exists to find solutions to environmental justice problems through extended dialog about specific topics.

The business of NEJAC is conducted under the leadership of a Designated Federal Officer (DFO). It is bound by the requirements of the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA) of 1972. The findings of subcommittees of the NEJAC make recommendations. The EPA also supervised the Environmental Justice Collaborative Problem-Solving Cooperative Agreement Program and the Environmental Justice Small Grants Program. Both provides financial assistance to organizations to achieve a number of objectives including identifying local environmental or public health issues, and for developing solutions that will empower the community through education, training, and outreach.

On February 11, 1994, President Bill Clinton issued Executive Order 12898 on Environmental Justice. This executive order made each federal agency responsible for making environmental justice a part of its mission. This was to be accomplished by identifying and addressing ways in which health and environmental effects of the respective federal agencies impacted people, especially minority and low-income populations in the United States and its territories: the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, and the Commonwealth of the Marian islands.

It also applied to Native American Programs operated by the Department of the Interior in consultation with tribal leaders. The whole cost was to be borne by the federal government. Each agency was ordered to form working groups that would formulate strategies for implementing environmental justice into it regulations and practices. Among the specifics of the executive order were directions for collecting data and for identifying consumption patterns of fish and wildlife. The federal agencies are responsible for publicizing the risks posed by the currently polluted environment of eating fish, fowl, and wildlife.

Ultimately, proponents of environmental justice believe that the environment is where people live, work, and play, and seek to overcome the institutionalize forces that they believe work against a clean environment. The variations in definitions, goals, practices, and contradictory theories of environmental justice reflect the many local conditions and groups of people from which the movement arose.

Bibliography:

Robert D. Bullard, ed, The Quest for Environmental Justice: Human Rights and the Politics of Pollution (Sierra Club Books, 2005);
Sue Cutter, Hazards, Vulnerability and Environmental Justice (Earthscan, 2006);
Jonathan Harr, A Civil Action (Vintage Books, 1996);
Timmons Roberts and Melissa M. Toffolon-Weiss, Chronicles from the Environmental Justice Frontier (Cambridge University Press, 2001);
Peter S. Wenz, Environmental Justice (State University Press of New York Press, 1988).