ABSTRACT
This chapter will look at spatial environmental justice in a domestic setting, focusing particularly on the effects of pollution on human health. It examines how we, in the United Kingdom, might implement one set of policies embodied in the 1994 US Executive Order on Environmental Justice and the subsequent US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Environmental Justice Strategy. These policies require regulators to identify disproportionately high and adverse human health or environmental effects on minority and low-income populations and to address these ‘injustices’. Given that health is affected by pollution, 2 and presuming both that technology is currently not geared up to eliminating these effects entirely and that the overall gain from these polluting activities is desirable, it is important to assess how we are to respond to these effects on health both in theory and in practice. In particular we must consider, if pollution is to be legal (albeit at very low limits), how, and in this context, where, to infringe interests (or rights) in life and health if regulators deem that some infringement is ‘worth’ the burden (or the risk of the burden). And although we may conclude that a more precautionary approach should be enshrined, we cannot ignore the status quo. If these effects not only occur, but are also thought to be reasonable, tolerable or acceptable, how are we to respond? In particular how are we to address the spatial distributions of such potentially or actually harmful activities?
