Restorative pathways after mass environmental victimization

Abstract

Departing from the parallelism between large-scale human rights violations and the complex notion of ecocide, some conceptual remarks will be drawn within the realm of green victimology and restorative justice. By questioning the frameworks of victimhood and the irreversibility of ecocide, some conclusions about the meaning of informal practices of memorialization in mass victimization can be discussed. To illustrate these ideas, the Prestige case in Spain will be briefly presented as a case study. Partiendo del paralelismo entre las violaciones de derechos humanos a gran escala y la compleja noción de ecocidio, se realizarán algunas consideraciones conceptuales dentro del campo de la victimología verde y la justicia restaurativa. Al cuestionar los marcos de la victimidad y de la irreversibilidad del ecocidio, se debatirán algunas conclusiones sobre el significado de ciertas prácticas informales de memorialización en procesos de victimización en masa. Para ilustrar estas ideas se recurrirá de forma sucinta, como caso de estudio, a las consecuencias del Prestige en España

Problematizando el victimismo ambiental. El caso de San Cristóbal de las Casas

“…With this as backdrop, several authors have stressed the affinity between restorative justice www.reic.criminologia.net ISSN: 1696-9219 and green criminological discourses on environmental harms, responsibilities and victimisation (Bisschop, 2015;Hall, 2013;Hamilton 2021;Natali, 2015;Pali & Aertsen, 2021;Varona, 2020), including for victims of corporate violence (Forti et al, 2018;Nieto Martín, 2023). Through dialogue, restorative justice confront harms to expose the overlapping and potentially conflicting subjective narratives of victims, aiming to reach a consensual understanding of the meaning of such harms.…”

Law Enforcement and Protection of Victims of Environmental Crimes: A Green Victimology Perspective

“…Because various methods or approaches can be carried out, including through economic instruments, education, technical assistance, and public pressure. [3] Seeing many cases of environmental damage due to rampant environmental crimes, almost all of them are influenced by several factors [8]: a. There is an indirect effect that occurs in environmental crimes, because the effects of environmental crimes do not seem to have occurred at the start but will become a snowball effect (snowball effect) that are slowly but surely growing in the background, for example like floods and landslides, these events may not happen right away, but the effects of environmental damage due to environmental crimes, will slowly but surely make humans, the environment and ecosystems affected and suffer a lot of losses ; b.…”

'Greening' Transitional Justice?

“…While transitional justice has been praised for its power to make 'victims visible' (De Greiff, 2020: 252), legalistic approaches inevitably shape who is categorised as a victim of conflict (García Godos and Lid, 2010). This often excludes human victims of environmental harm (White, 2018: 240) and nonhuman entities (Lynch et al, 2019;Varona, 2020). Indeed, while environmental victimhood has received some recognition within transitional justice processes, notably in Colombia (McClanahan et al, 2019: 76) and Peru (Falcón, 2018), such recognition remains relatively exceptional.…”

“…Green victimology can make a valuable contribution here. This literature is characterised by a strong focus on advocating for the 'less visible' (Bisschop and Walle, 2013: 48) but diverse victims of environmental harm (Williams, 1996;Hall, 2013;Jarrell and Ozymy, 2012;Varona, 2020). It highlights the racism (Bullard, 1993;Sampson andWinter, 2016, gender inequalities (Merchant, 1996;Gaarder, 2013;Wachholz, 2007), speciesism (Sollund, 2008;Wyatt, 2013) and other inequalities that leave those most impacted by environmental harm voiceless (Crook et al, 2018;Goyes, 2016;, directing our gaze to the rights of ecosystems, non-human animals, future generations and indigenous peoples (Mehta and Merz, 2015).…”