Environmental Justice as Environmental Human Rights

Abstract

For many years, the environmental justice movement in the United States and the evolution of international human rights law concerning the environment have pursued parallel but separate paths, only occasionally noting that they share common concerns. This article seeks to build a stronger bridge between them.

It sets out the most detailed restatement of environmental human rights law yet published in the scholarly literature, and it provides the first systematic evaluation of the United States in light of that jurisprudence. It concludes that the US failure to effectively address environmental discrimination against African Americans, Native Americans, and other racialized minorities violates its obligations under international human rights law. The U.S. government has paid lip service to environmental justice in principle, but it has failed to reform its laws, or use the ones it has effectively, to address environmental discrimination in practice or to respect the land rights of Indigenous peoples.

Finally, the article explains that, even though U.S. courts are not open to international human rights claims, international bodies are. Advocates could more frequently ask regional human rights commissions, human rights treaty bodies, and UN special rapporteurs to examine the U.S. failure to meet its international obligations. Although the decisions and reports of these bodies are not legally binding, they can still complement and support domestic efforts to achieve environmental justice.

The quest for environmental justice in the United States is also a quest to bring the United States into compliance with environmental human rights law. Recognizing the connections between them can help in the struggle for both.

Keywords: human rights law, environment, environmental justice, United States, racism, indigenous rights

JEL Classification: K32, K33