Carnegie Council Logo
 
SEARCH:  
   PEOPLE    ADVANCED
THEMES PROGRAMS CALENDAR RESOURCES SUPPORT US ABOUT US
Print Page Mail Page
 
Resources
  Transcripts
  Audio
  Video
  Ethics & International Affairs Journal
  Carnegie Ethics Online
  Articles, Papers, and Reports
  Other Publications
  Morgenthau Lectures (1981-Present)
  Human Rights Dialogue (1994-2005)
  Inprint Newsletter (2001-04)
  Case Studies Series (1989-2001)
  Nizer Lectures (1994-1998)
  Public Philosophy Monographs (1998)
  Privatization Project (1991-1994)
  Human Rights & Foreign Policy by Hans J. Morgenthau (1979)
  WORLDVIEW Magazine (1958-1985)
  For Educators and Students
  Global Ethics Corner Videos
  Resource Picks
  "To Be Read" Book Review Column
  RSS
 
 
Carnegie Council Podcast
Carnegie Council RSS


eNewsletter Signup
Please enter your email address to subscribe to the Carnegie Council email newsletter.
 
 
 
Most Emailed Pages
1. Expanding Europe: The Ethics of EU-Turkey Relations [Full Text]
2. The End of the American Era: U.S. Foreign Policy and the Geopolitics of the Twenty-first Century
3. Iran and the United States: David Speedie Interviews Gary Sick
4. Implementing Women’s Human Rights in Malaysia
5. Business and Human Rights in Conflict [Excerpt]
 
   
     
 

Series 2 No. 11 (Spring 2004): Environmental Rights

 
     
 
$5.00
  Add to Shopping Cart

DOWNLOAD FOR FREE (LINK AT BOTTOM OF PAGE), OR PURCHASE PRINT COPY.

Although both human rights protection and environmental protection are relatively well-developed areas of public policy, recognition of the linkage between the two has been slow to develop. As activists, scholars, and policy practitioners have increasingly encountered situations at the intersection of these two areas, calls for the protection of environmental rights have intensified. Despite recent developments, however, no binding international agreement has had environmental rights as its primary focus. In addition, the issue continues to suffer from inattention due to the fact that it fails to fit neatly within the agenda of either the human rights movement or the environmental movement. The Spring 2004 issue of Human Rights Dialogue explores the definition, status, and relevance of the concept of environmental rights in law and politics around the world, and the extent to which a human rights lens is a helpful way in which to view environmental issues. Essays in this issue are organized around four themes: the inseparability of human rights and environmentalism; conflicts between human rights and environmental goals; the relationship between the concept and application of environmental justice and of human rights; and the enforceability of environmental rights.

 
Introduction
 
Introduction: Environmental Rights - 04/21/04
These essays collectively explore the definition, status, and relevance of the concept of environmental rights in law and politics around the world, and the extent to which a human rights lens is a helpful tool through which to view environmental issues.
 
 
SECTION 1 THE INSEPARABILITY OF HUMAN RIGHTS AND ENVIRONMENTALISM
 
Environmental Rights as a Matter of Survival - 04/20/04
Ratner points out that, for Cambodia's fishing communities, whose livelihoods depend on access to fishing grounds, human rights and the environment are "related in every way."
Author(s): Blake D. Ratner
 
 
The Ecological Roots of a Democracy Movement - 04/21/04
Kilburn and Vanek describe how widespread environmentalism propelled the human rights agenda of a generation of young activists in the former Czechoslovakia.
Author(s): Michael Kilburn, Miroslav Vanek
 
 
Climate Change and Human Rights - 04/22/04
For the Arctic's Inuit, climate change is having very real human rights effects. Sheila Watt-Cloutier describes their creative efforts to hold governments accountable.
Author(s): Sheila Watt-Cloutier
 
 
Commentary on "The inseparability of human rights and environmentalism" - 04/22/04
Johnston considers the three essays in this section, noting how they remind us that as the exploitation of world resources and the degradation of the biosphere intensify, social movements to reshape priorities and ways of life are assuming an increasingly significant role.
Author(s): Barbara Rose Johnston
 
 
SECTION 2 THE CONFLICT BETWEEN RIGHTS AND ENVIRONMENTALISM
 
When Parks and People Collide - 04/23/04
In much of Africa, write Peter G. Veit and Catherine Benson, efforts to safeguard wildlife have violated human rights.
Author(s): Peter G. Veit, Catherine Benson
 
 
Workers' Rights and Pollution Control in Delhi - 04/23/04
According to Kelly D. Alley and Daniel Meadows, India's judicial efforts to protect the "right to life" by shutting down and relocating polluting industries in Delhi have marginalized, displaced, or dispossessed thousands of the city's working poor.
Author(s): Kelly D. Alley, Daniel Meadows
 
 
Environmental Rights vs. Cultural Rights - 04/23/04
As Alison Dundes Renteln demonstrates, protecting cultural rights and endangered species requires a delicate balancing act.
Author(s): Alison Dundes Renteln
 
 
Commentary on "The conflict between rights and environmentalism" - 04/26/04
The essays in this section vividly illustrate that certain specific efforts to protect the environment from the “bio-degenerative consequences of human action”  can run the risk of colliding with human rights norms.
Author(s): Joanne Bauer
 
 
SECTION 3 THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN ENVIRONMENTAL RIGHTS AND ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE
 
"The Chixoy Dam Destroyed Our Lives" - 04/26/04
Monti Aguirre describes the tragedy of the Maya-Achi people of Guatemala, victims of a World Bank-funded hydro-electric dam, and their efforts to reclaim their lives.
Author(s): Monti Aguirre
 
 
Twilight People: Iraq's Marsh Inhabitants - 04/27/04
Saddam Hussein drained Iraq's southern marshlands as part of a deliberate strategy to destroy the lives of the region's indigenous inhabitants. As Sayyed Nadeem Kazmi and Stuart M. Leiderman explain, restoring this fragile ecosystem should be a fundamental imperative in the new Iraq.
Author(s): Sayyed Nadeem Kazmi, Stuart Leiderman
 
 
Mining a Sacred Land - 04/27/04
Walton describes Freeport McMoRan's devastation of the Amungme and Kamoro people in Papua in what has become one of the best known cases of environmental injustice perpetrated by a multinational extractive industry.
Author(s): Abigail Abrash Walton
 
 
Commentary on "The relationship between environmental rights and environmental injustice" - 04/27/04
Atik examines the issues addressed in this section through claims of (1) environmental justice, (2) environmental human rights, and (3) “strong environmental rights,” the rights of the natural environment itself, in order to formulate possible solutions appropriate to each.
Author(s): Jeffery Atik
 
 
SECTION 4 THE ENFORCEABILITY OF ENVIRONMENTAL RIGHTS
 
A Nascent Agenda for the Americas - 04/27/04
As Taillant writes, recently in Latin America the enforcement of human rights and environmental legislation has been making headway.
Author(s): Jorge Daniel Taillant
 
 
Environmental Rights Enforcement in U.S. Courts - 04/27/04
Osofsky notes that, unless advocates can convince courts to accept a characterization of these problems as violations of international law, victims of severe environmental harm will be limited to domestic law and non-legal strategies for obtaining redress.
Author(s): Hari M. Osofsky
 
 
Defending Environmental Defenders - 04/27/04
Folabi K. Olagbaju and Stephen Mills detail how two leading American grassroots organizations -- Amnesty International USA and Sierra Club -- joined hands to protect those who advocate for the environment.
Author(s): Folabi K. Olagbaju, Stephen Mills
 
 
Commentary on "The enforceability of environmental rights" - 04/28/04
It is up to the NGO community to identify common concerns around human rights and the environment, and to posit a definition of environmental rights that is both broad enough to account for varying cultural contexts and specific enough to be comprehensible.
Author(s): Betsy Apple
 
 
Online Exclusives
 
A Choice for Indigenous Communities in the Philippines - 04/27/04
When an indigenous community is determined to protect its natural resources and rights, when a legal framework supports their rights, and when assistance is available from NGOs, effective action can obtain recognition of existing rights and protect local ecosystems.
Author(s): Maurizio Farhan Ferrari, Dave de Vera
 
 
Environmental Protection in the United States: A Right, a Privilege, or Politics? - 04/20/04
Environmental justice in the U.S. has historically related to the need to redress the disproportionate effects of pollution on low-income and minority communities. Today, the effects of mounting pollution go far beyond these communities.
Author(s): Aimée Christensen
 
 
Interview with Cristóbal Osorio Sánchez - 04/26/04
Sánchez is a survivor of massacres perpetrated against the Maya-Achí community of Rio Negro, Guatemala, and one of the Chixoy Dam-affected people. He is president of the Peasant Association of the Community of Rio Negro Maya-Achí and sits on the board of the Association of Chixoy Dam Affected Communities.
Author(s): Monti Aguirre
 
 
Readers Respond: Environmental Rights - 10/08/04
 
 
Readers Respond: Violence Against Women - 05/18/04
 
 
Annotated links
 
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES: "Environmental Rights" - 06/24/04
 
 
ARTICLE RESOURCES/READINGS: "Environmental Rights" - 05/25/04
 
 
Discussion Questions
 
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS: "Environmental Rights" - 09/12/04
 

Download: Download for Free (PDF, 1.32 M)

 
 

About Human Rights Dialogue

Human Rights Dialogue promotes a global discussion of human rights ideas and practices by presenting firsthand accounts of human rights issues as they arise within specific real-life contexts. In so doing, it helps to clarify the significant and ongoing evolution that is taking place within the human rights movement to make the human rights framework more relevant and effective in addressing the social, economic, and political challenges of the twenty-first century.

The entire publication is online, or you may purchase individual print copies.

Series One (1993–1998)examines all sides of the Asian values debate—the argument that Asian cultural values imply different human rights standards and priorities from those in the West.

Series Two(2000–2005)addresses the problem of the “human rights box”—the constraints that have enabled the human rights framework to gain currency among elites while limiting its advance among the most vulnerable. Specifically, the essays aim to locate the barriers to greater public legitimacy of human rights and to demonstrate how those barriers can be overcome.

Related

Forging Environmentalism: ONLINE BOOK COMPANION

Environmental Values

 
 

Resource Highlights

Global Ethics Corner: Market Capitalism Questioned
Global Ethics Corner
  Will people associate U.S. power with "global misery" or with the opportunity and pluralism that Obama's victory represents?
> More
Fixing Fragile States
Fixing Fragile States
  Devin Stewart interviews Seth Kaplan on his new book, which lays out a new paradigm for development.
> More
> All Audios
New from Policy Innovations Online Magazine
Policy Innovations Online Magazine
  "Corporate Social License and Community Consent," by Keith Slack.
> More
Ethics & International Affairs
Ethics & International Affairs
  Go to the Journal for articles on ethics and foreign policy.
> More