Living beyond the Pale: Environmental Justice and the Roma Minority

Chapter Two: Environmental Justice and Entitlements

CHAPTER TWO Environmental Justice and Entitlements I based my analyses of the Roma situation on two concepts: environmental justice and entitlement. Both concepts are helpful in order to address the questions of origins and presence of the inequalities and to create a framework for shedding light on the importance, dynamics, and outcomes of the uneven distribution. It is perhaps useful to start first with the history and evolution of the concept of environmental justice. It helps us to analyze approaches to understanding what is (and what is not) just in the distribution of environmental benefits and harm. There is no better point of departure, than to look on extensive literature from the United States, where the term “environmental justice” was first used. Approaches from the United States are then discussed vis-à-vis literature from the United Kingdom, where several researchers and activists have applied the environmental justice framework to the analysis of marginalized groups’ living environment. I perceive entitlement to be the key factor in the formation of environmental injustice. Those who decide on the distribution of natural resources and rights to natural resources (especially land) have the decisive word in community development. Unequal or restricted entitlement over natural resources can be seen as a key factor in the explanation of inequality of the social situation among the stakeholders on the community level. It helps us better understand why certain settlements are located in the regularly flooded areas, or in close proximity to landfills. The points of agreement and links between the concept of environmental justice and entitlement to natural resources are rather complex and complicated. Before we get to discussion about them, let’s have a look at the different perspectives existing for discussing the distribution of environmental benefits and harm. 20 Living Beyond the Pale Distribution and Procedures Who gets what and how it happened? Seemingly easy questions. Yet we can look at the distribution from the global perspective, or from a perspective of the state, region, or settlement. We can consider among stakeholders not only people exposed to the unequal impact of industrial pollution , but also future unborn generations or nonhuman beings. International distributive justice and the environment have increasingly appeared in discourses that focus on globalization. Terms like “ecological imperialism” or “environmental colonialism” are often used in this debate. Leading activists such as Walden Bello or Vandana Shiva—together with recognized international NGOs such as Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth International, and the Third World Network—have pointed out the practice of countries and multinational companies shifting environmentally damaging production to developing countries, as well as the persistent exploitation of natural resources in those countries and devastation of the environment and local communities. According to Byrne et al. (2002: 9): Environmental problems such as stratospheric ozone loss, climate change, and declining biodiversity have also underscored the international dimension of issues of environmental justice. While global environmental degradation has been the result of historical patterns of exploitative practices by the industrial elite, in most instances the consequences are or will be borne most heavily by poorer communities. These facts contribute to the discussion of how to provide for more environmental justice in a global context. This is a significant challenge in a polarizing world and in an era where disparities in wealth and power are growing between developed and developing countries as well as within countries. Harper and Rajan (2002) have identified three ways in which rich countries of the Global North exploit the ecology of poorer countries: (i) as a source of raw materials for the North; (ii) as a sink where the North can dispose of pollution and environmental “side effects;” and (iii) through “coercive conservation” as a preserve for wild ecosystems and biodiversity without consideration of the human communities living in or near wildlife habitats. International environmental justice provides other arguments for any negotiated agreement on global environmental governance. North–South differences in the perception of sustainable development illustrate this point. For instance, discussions at the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg revealed that for countries from the North, sustainable development means environmentally and socially supportable Environmental Justice and Entitlements 21 development (i.e., increased environmental protection without compromising on maintaining and increasing standards of living). In contrast, for the countries of the South, sustainable development is primarily an issue of equity and justice at the global level (including the right for them to develop their economies in the same...