ABSTRACT
EU cohesion policy is largely overlooked by studies of the nexus between human rights and environmental protection in Europe. Yet EU cohesion policy is a major force in shaping the spaces in which people live, work, and play. It is, therefore, worthwhile to identify points of synergy and tension between its overarching objective (balanced territorial development) and that of the ecosystem-based approach to marine spatial planning (MSP) sketched out in the previous chapter (social-ecological well-being). Conscious of the ambiguity that surrounds these objectives, this chapter aims to open up new terrain for their mutual conceptual clarification and reciprocal normative enhancement. More specifically, the notion of social-ecological well-being is used to tease out the tacit assumptions that underlie EU cohesion policy, particularly as regards its reductive construal of human needs, aspirations, and concerns relating to the marine environment. Balanced territorial development, on the other hand, is called upon to clarify the spatiality of social-ecological well-being in a manner that coheres with the narratives and processes that shape the common maritime territory of the EU. The analysis culminates in the identification of spatial justice as a helpful guiding ideal for an approach to MSP that is both human rights-based and ecosystem-based.
