Environmental Justice

Environmental justice emerged as a concept in the United States in the early 1980s. The term has two distinct uses with the more common usage describing a social movement that focuses on the "fair" distribution of environmental benefits and burdens. The other use is an interdisciplinary body of social science literature that includes theories of the environment and justice, environmental laws and their implementations, environmental policy and planning and governance for development and sustainability, and political ecology. Political theorists have typically defined environmental justice as the equitable distribution of environmental risks and benefits. Other theorists have attempted to go beyond this definition to identify the processes that bring about inequitable distribution of goods. These extended definitions identify fair and meaningful participation in decision-making; recognition of oppression and difference in affected communities; and the peoples' capacity to convert social goods into a flourishing community as further criteria for a just society.

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