ABSTRACT
The "environmental justice" approach has played a vital role in generating an awareness of the human dimensions of environmental change, mobilizing action, and in amassing data. This chapter proposes working definitions, embraces a brief critique of the "environmental justice" approach, consolidates an emerging epistemology, and outlines issues that could be the concern of an environmental victimology in the future. Environmental law usually embodies the principle that the outcome of an act must have been "reasonably foreseeable" for it to constitute an offense. Environmental victims are often, in effect, sacrificed for the benefit of a more powerful entity. It is common for industrial polluters to argue that the environment of a few downstream/downwind individuals must be sacrificed for the greater good of improving national economies or providing employment. Avoidance of liability leads to failures to prevent or redress victimization, and a social impact that has been dubbed the "environmental victim syndrome.".
