POLSC402: Global Justice

4.3: Distributive Justice and the Environment

• 4.3.1: Resource Scarcity and Competition

  • University of Oxford, Centre for the Study of Social Justice: David Miller's "Human Rights, Basic Needs, & Scarcity" URL

    Read this article. Miller explores the conundrum that emerges when resource scarcities appear to make impossible the equal protection of human rights for all. In such circumstances, some favor the limitation of human rights, while others consider the just distribution of available resources. Miller shows the fallacies of these approaches by employing a human needs framework. A complicated picture of human rights protection and promotion in situations of resource scarcity emerges. 

  • Political Studies: Tim Hayward's "Global Justice and the Distribution of Natural Resources" URL

    Read this article. Hayward applies the problem of natural resource scarcity to distributive justice on a global level.

• 4.3.2: Who Gets the Left-Overs: Environmental Racism, Degradation, and Waste

  • JoAnn Carmin and Julian Agyeman's "Introduction: Environmental Inequalities beyond Borders" URL

    Read this introductory chapter of a book on environmental inequalities, which provides an overview of the globalization of such inequalities and the ways in which they play out in local contexts. Specifically, the authors explore the practices of corporate and state actors in the globalized economy and the impact of such practices on local communities' human rights. 

  • Environmental Affairs Law Review: Louis G. Leonard's "Sovereignty, Self-Determination, and Environmental Justice in the Mescalero Apache's Decision to Store Nuclear Waste" URL

    Read this case study about an indigenous community's decision to store nuclear waste on its territory. Is such agency on the part of the indigenous community driven by development concerns? In what ways does such agency undermine global environmental justice, if at all?
    

  • Monti Aguirre's "The Chixoy Dam Destroyed Our Lives" URL

    Read this article and the following ones for an overview of the relationship between environmental rights and environmental justice. Are human rights and development goals intrinsically at odds with each other? Is it possible to pursue development and simultaneously respect the human rights of individuals and communities?

  • Abigail Abrash Walton's "Mining a Sacred Land" URL

    Read this article with the two others for an overview of the relationship between environmental rights and environmental justice.

  • Jeffery Atik's "Commentary on 'the Relationship between Environmental Rights and Environmental Injustice'" URL

    Read this article with the two others for an overview of the relationship between environmental rights and environmental justice.