Ecological Distribution Conflicts and the Vocabulary of Environmental Justice

Abstract

There is a fundamental clash between economy and the environment due to the growing social metabolism of industrial economies. Energy cannot be recycled. Therefore, the energy from the fossil fuels is used only once, and new supplies of coal, oil, and gas must be obtained from the "commodity extraction frontiers". Similarly, materials are recycled only in part, and therefore, even an economy that would not grow would need fresh supplies of iron ore, bauxite, copper, and paper pulp. The industrial economy is entropic. Meanwhile, permanent "funds" such as aquifers, forests, and fisheries are overexploited, the fertility of the soil is jeopardized and biodiversity is depleted. Thus, the changing social metabolism of industrial economies (including waste disposal such as the excessive production of carbon dioxide) gives rise to growing numbers of ecological distribution conflicts that sometimes overlap with other social conflicts on class, ethnicity or indigenous identity, gender, caste, or territorial rights. The term Ecological Distribution Conflicts (EDC) was coined to describe social conflicts born from the unfair access to natural resources and the unjust burdens of pollution. Such conflicts give birth to movements of resistance, to the point that we can speak already of a global movement for Environmental Justice.

Resourcification: A non‐essentialist theory of resources for sustainable development

“…Resourcification analysis, then, reveals the systemic asymmetries of unequal resource access, utilization, and control (Martinez‐Alier, 2018). Consequently, resourcification is both for someone as well as not for others.…”

“…For instance, if framed by a nation state, resourcification will most likely fuel a nation‐centric vision of such resource exploitation (Bridge, 2013). Among resource owners, resource nationalism usually prompts protectionist practices to safeguard the becoming of resources (Koch & Perreault, 2019), whereas among prospectors, it may prompt secretive personal designs for individual enrichment or trigger collectively aggressive neo‐colonial resource‐grabbing (Martinez‐Alier, 2018). Likewise, acknowledging the differences in the developmental needs of men and women (Nhamo, Muchuru, & Nhamo, 2018) will prompt different resourcification priorities.…”

The UNGPs on Business and Human Rights and the Greening of Human Rights Litigation: Fishing in Fragmented Waters?

“…Although civil society participation represents an important aspect of the current greening of human rights litigation, SEMS do not necessarily follow the conceptual framework of environmental justice that addresses the ecological debt, conceptually developed mainly by Ecological Economics [139,140,214]. Ecological debt has four dimensions: firstly, debt originated from the intergenerational unfair protection of environmental rights of future generations.…”

“…Secondly, debt originated by the historical attribution of responsibility for ecological crises and depletion caused by past phenomena such as colonisation [215,216]. Thirdly, inter-spatial ecological injustice, i.e., the unequal geographical distribution of ecological risks and adaptation costs and the unequal distribution and unfair exploitation of natural resources among regions [139,140,217]. Fourthly, the unfair access to information and justice [218].…”

“…The review mainly draws on literature from the Business and Human Rights, but also considers the sociology of law [137], behavioural economics [138], environmental justice [139,140] as well as other postmodern approaches to ecological protection (Earth Jurisprudence, cf. below).…”