Ch: 6 Environmental Justice

Context: Environmental Justice (Adrian Martin, 2013)

This chapter explores the practical and theoretical dimensions of environmental justice
on a global scale. Adrian Martin critiques how environmental justice (EJ) is approached,
particularly focusing on issues of inequality, marginalization, and the moral geography of
responsibility and entitlement.

• Global Inequalities: The global South disproportionately bears environmental

burdens (e.g. pollution, deforestation), while the global North benefits from
consumption and resource use.
• Distributive Justice: The chapter questions how environmental goods (like
clean air) and bads (like waste dumps) are distributed and whether this
distribution is fair.
• Recognition and Participation: Justice involves not only distribution but also
recognition of cultural identities and active participation in decision-making
processes.
• Practical Challenges: Implementing EJ across borders is complex due to
political, economic, and cultural differences. Projects may fail if they ignore
local contexts or replicate existing power hierarchies.
• Moral and Political Dimensions: The chapter discusses the need for global
frameworks of justice that are sensitive to both universal rights and local
realities.

Global Environmental In/Justice, in Practice: Introduction

Environmental justice is a critical lens for understanding the inequities in how
environmental benefits and harms are distributed across societies. This paper
introduces a themed section of *The Geographical Journal* that explores global
environmental injustice through case studies in forests, transboundary waters,
biodiversity conservation, energy and climate change, and disasters. It emphasizes the
value of a global perspective on justice, which reflects the scale of modern
environmental challenges, the political-economic forces driving resource inequities, and
the narratives used to articulate claims about these injustices. The paper argues that a
global framing highlights the political and economic mechanisms producing injustices
and reveals the limitations of purely distributive approaches to justice. It also draws out
emergent themes from the five papers in the section, including the role of new
commodity frontiers, the interplay between social and environmental justice, and the
challenges of implementing just processes in practice.
The global political-economic system generates stark disparities in access to resources.
While technological advancements enable feats like sending electricity to Mars, roughly
a quarter of the world’s population lacks access to basic energy, and half of this group
also lacks clean water. These resource-poor communities are often more vulnerable to
disasters such as droughts, floods, and earthquakes due to limited resilience and
recovery capacity. Environmental justice scholars and activists focus on these
inequities, examining not only the distribution of environmental goods and harms but
also the processes that produce them. Social scientists are increasingly interested in
how claims of injustice are constructed, the competing conceptions of justice invoked,
and why some claims gain traction while others are marginalized. Following Schlosberg
(2004), environmental justice is conceptualized through three dimensions: distribution
(how benefits and harms are shared), procedure (who makes decisions and how), and
recognition (whose knowledge and culture are respected or marginalized). These
dimensions are interconnected, as unjust procedures often lead to inequitable
distributions, and lack of recognition perpetuates exclusion.
Environmental justice struggles are often rooted in specific places but are shaped by
global dynamics. Local conflicts over land grabs or resource access frequently draw on
global vocabularies, such as “indigenous rights,” and are connected through
international networks. A global perspective on environmental justice is valuable
because it reflects the scale of contemporary environmental problems, such as climate
change and biodiversity loss, which transcend national boundaries. It also highlights the
political-economic forces—such as global capitalism and trade—that drive resource
inequities. For example, the expansion of commodity frontiers, where new resources like
carbon credits or ecosystem services are commodified, often exacerbates inequalities
by prioritizing powerful actors over marginalized communities (Muradian et al., 2012). A
global framing foregrounds these structural forces and reveals how justice claims are
shaped by competing narratives and power dynamics.

The Appeal for Environment Justice

The appeal of environmental justice lies in its intrinsic and instrumental value.
Intrinsically, ensuring fair treatment and protecting individuals from harm are widely seen
as moral imperatives. Instrumentally, as Martin Luther King suggested, social equity can
lead to better societal outcomes. Emerging evidence suggests that equitable resource
management, such as inclusive forest governance, can enhance environmental
sustainability (Persha et al., 2011). Justice also resonates with scholars like John Rawls
(1971), who argued that just decisions should prioritize the most vulnerable. Rawls’ “veil
of ignorance” thought experiment suggests that decision-makers, unaware of their own
status, would favor principles that protect the least advantaged. This egalitarian
perspective appeals to development geographers, who use justice frameworks to
critique inequities and advocate for marginalized groups.
Despite rhetorical commitments to equity in global frameworks like the 1972 Stockholm
Conference, the 1992 Earth Summit, or the 1997 UN Watercourses Convention, political
will to implement these principles is often undermined by powerful interests. For
example, Clark, Chhotray, and Few (2013) show how state responses to the 2004 Indian
Ocean tsunami and the 2010 Haiti earthquake prioritized political-economic agendas
over humanitarian needs. However, global frameworks like the Convention on Biological
Diversity and the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples provide
vocabularies and referents that grassroots movements can use to articulate justice
claims. These frameworks, while imperfect, help connect local struggles to global
narratives.
A global perspective on environmental justice emphasizes the spatial and temporal
scales of injustice. Historically, social justice was framed within state boundaries,
implemented through mechanisms like judiciaries or welfare systems. However,
environmental justice extends beyond states, as seen in movements against toxic waste
in the USA or exclusion from ancestral lands in India. Global processes, such as trade or
climate change, shape local inequities, requiring a broader analytical lens. For instance,
the commodification of resources like water or carbon credits often benefits powerful
actors while dispossessing vulnerable communities (Zeitoun, 2013; Newell and
Mulvaney, 2013). Understanding these dynamics requires examining how global
economic systems produce and reproduce injustices.

Justice at Frontiers
Environmental conflicts are increasingly driven by the expansion of global capitalism,
which creates new commodity frontiers where resources are extracted or commodified
(Muradian et al., 2012). These frontiers include not only traditional resources like oil or
timber but also novel ones like carbon credits, genetic coding, and ecosystem services.
The creation of these commodities involves new actors—states, corporations, and
NGOs—engaged in accumulation or resistance. For example, the Clean Development
Mechanism promotes “clean” energy projects, but the benefits often flow to powerful
entities, leaving 1.5 billion people without electricity (Newell and Mulvaney, 2013).
Similarly, water, both in its physical and virtual forms, tends to flow toward economic and
political power, exacerbating inequities (Zeitoun, 2013).
The concept of ecosystem services, which assigns economic value to nature’s
contributions to human well-being, has gained traction as a tool for addressing
environmental challenges like climate change and biodiversity loss. However, this
approach can prioritize market-based solutions that marginalize non-economic values,
such as cultural or spiritual connections to nature. Martin et al. (2013) argue that market-
driven conservation often assumes humans must be separated from nature and that
ecosystem services should be delivered efficiently through competition. This framing can
undermine cultural diversity and alternative ways of relating to the environment,
reinforcing inequities.
Justice is inherently contested, with different actors prioritizing different dimensions—
distribution, procedure, or recognition—based on their context and values. For example,
in forest management, there is often an overemphasis on distributing benefits (e.g.,
payments for ecosystem services) at the expense of procedural justice, such as inclusive
decision-making (Forsyth and Sikor, 2013). Similarly, Zeitoun (2013) highlights how power
asymmetries in transboundary water governance undermine fair procedures.
Recognition justice, which addresses whose knowledge and culture are valued, is critical
because exclusion from decision-making often stems from cultural domination. Fraser
(2001) argues that recognition requires parity of participation, free from assimilation to
dominant norms. However, achieving these ideals is challenging due to entrenched
power imbalances.
The papers in this themed section reveal the limitations of distributive justice
approaches, which focus narrowly on sharing benefits and harms. Distributive justice
assumes a fixed set of resources to be allocated, but environmental conflicts often
involve deeper issues of power, identity, and access to decision-making. For instance,
biodiversity conservation initiatives may achieve ecological goals but perpetuate
injustices by excluding local communities from their lands (Martin et al., 2013). Similarly,
disaster responses often fail to address underlying vulnerabilities shaped by historical
inequities (Clark et al., 2013). These cases underscore the need for a broader justice
framework that integrates distribution, procedure, and recognition.
The interplay between social and environmental justice is a recurring theme.
Contemporary geographical thought views society and nature as mutually constituting,
using concepts like the hydro-social cycle or biocultural diversity to capture these
dynamics. However, the compatibility of social and environmental justice is debated.
Dobson (2007) questions whether prioritizing social justice undermines environmental
sustainability. The papers in this issue argue that the two are inseparable, as social
inequities often exacerbate environmental degradation. Yet, biodiversity conservation
poses a challenge: historical injustices, such as forced displacements, have sometimes
preserved ecosystems, raising questions about whether social justice always aligns with
environmental goals.

New Challenges for Environmental justice Thinking

Dominant economic framings of environmental problems can marginalize alternative
moralities, such as community-based stewardship or care for others. Marglin (2010)
argues that economic thinking undermines social relations critical to long-term well-
being. Martin et al. (2013) show how market-based conservation prioritizes efficiency
over cultural diversity, while Clark et al. (2013) suggest that emphasizing conflict and self-
interest in disaster responses crowds out compassion and communal values. These
critiques challenge liberal notions of justice, which emphasize individual rights, and call
for approaches that prioritize collective well-being and social cohesion.
In conclusion, a global environmental justice perspective illuminates the political-
economic forces driving inequities and the limitations of distributive approaches. The
themed section’s papers highlight how new commodity frontiers, from carbon credits to
ecosystem services, exacerbate injustices by prioritizing powerful actors. They also
underscore the inseparability of social and environmental justice, while acknowledging
tensions, such as in biodiversity conservation. Achieving justice requires addressing not
only distribution but also procedure and recognition, despite the challenges posed by
power asymmetries. By examining these dynamics across diverse sectors, this collection
advances our understanding of environmental justice in practice and its implications for
a more equitable and sustainable world.