Environmental Justice in the Global South

We are witnessing environmental change unseen in millions of years: The sixth mass extinction of species, the changing climate, the dying oceans and dwindling forests, the spreading deserts, the increasing toxicity of our water, air and soil, and the complex interrelatedness between these phenomena. In attempting to formulate adequate responses, communities, activists, technical experts, academics, as well as law and policymakers, are increasingly turning to the notion of environmental justice for guidance. Before examining reasons for such a turn, it is worth stating that I am among those making this move, and this Chapter is self-reflexive participation in constructing what environmental justice means for the Global South. I am an international law scholar and practitioner in the Global South and part of the Third World Approaches to International Law (TWAIL) movement. My assessment of environmental justice is colored by my location, profession, and politics. I judge the utility of environmental justice against the backdrop of how effective international law has heretofore been for addressing the environmental concerns of the Global South. The concept of environmental justice has its origins in the United States in the 1980s when it was used to describe the unequal impact of industrial pollution on racial minorities. From these beginnings, over the last four decades the idea has blossomed, expanding both geographically and historically to encompass variegated environmental struggles worldwide, including those from centuries past. Why does this concept have such resonance and wherein lies its usefulness? This chapter examines these questions from the point of view of the Global South. I begin with some background on what is meant by the Global South and by environmental justice. I then use the customary four-pillar formulation of environmental justice – distributive justice, procedural justice, corrective justice, and social justice – to explain the different theoretical and practical ways in which this concept is helpful for understanding environmental struggles across the Global South.