ABSTRACT
Most environmental protests are both legal and peaceful. But some have been neither. In recent years, environmental activists have engaged in mass trespass, blockaded logging roads, vandalized buildings with graffiti, scaled iconic structures to hang protest banners, destroyed genetically modified (GM) crops, and, in rare cases, committed arson. Detractors have condemned such protests, sometimes characterizing them as instances of militant activism or even terrorism. Those responsible have often denied this, claiming they were engaged in conscientious civil disobedience from justifiable concerns about important civic issues. To make sense of these counter-claims, we must try to get clear about what civil disobedience is, what distinguishes it from other forms of illegal action, and what circumstances can justify its employment.
