ABSTRACT
The concept of environmental justice has developed both at national and international levels. The international community has addressed the issue of the unequal sharing of costs and benefits of environmental protection through such principles as sustainable development, intergenerational equity and common, but differentiated responsibility in managing the global environment (Costi, 1999, pp315–16). At the national level, considerable debate in the US followed the publication of studies demonstrating the discrepancies between the environmental burden suffered by economically and racially disadvantaged minorities and their exposure to greater environmental hazards, and the satisfactory level of environmental protection in areas inhabited by white middle-class communities (Weintraub, 1995, pp567–70). Despite the development of a body of literature on the subject however, the environmental justice movement within Western Europe remains relatively weak.
