ABSTRACT
This conclusion presents some closing thoughts on the key concepts discussed in the preceding chapters of this book. The book argues that economic rationality determines ‘normal’ political choices made in the capitalist political economy. It demonstrates how environmental degradation and resource depletion are the inevitable consequences of accepting the political terms of reference advocated by economic rationality. The book examines the demands for environmental human rights made by the human rights and environmental movements. It analyzes the nature of the power held by multi national corporation and international finance capital to argue that policy and law making is increasingly restricted to the corporate agenda of deregulation and market freedom. The book presents the application of the legal principle of harm in the context of the claimed environmental human right to an environment free from toxic pollution. Small-scale subsistence based economies offer an alternative model to global free trade, allocative efficiency and the associated environmental degradation.
