ABSTRACT
The globalisation of environmental concerns and the internationalisation of environmental law have promoted the development of environmental justice discourse. This discourse discerns, analyses and calls for the distribution of environmental benefits and burdens (Walzer 1983: 6; Brighouse 2004: 2), the recognition of oppressed individuals and communities in political and cultural realms (Taylor 1986; Young 1990: 22; Honneth 1992) and procedural dimensions focusing on participatory mechanisms (Schlosberg 2007: 25-29; Holifield et al. 2011: 10). The discourse initially concentrated on the disproportionate effects of environmental degradation on people and places and on distributional inequity. The term ‘environmental justice’ originated in events in Warren County, North Carolina, in 1982 (Agyeman 2005: 14). Toxic waste was dumped within and resisted by a marginalised community. The result was ‘people went to jail trying to stop a toxic waste landfill’ (Geiser and Waneck 1994: 52; Agyeman 2005: 14). Because of its similar timeline, this dispute is commonly associated with the Love Canal residential and community development on toxic land in New York State (Dobson 1998: 18). These appalling incidents demonstrated a connection between poor or low-income neighbourhoods and the poisoned environment where they were located. Szasz observed: ‘toxic victims are, typically, poor or working people of modest means. Their environmental problems are inseparable from their economic condition. People are more likely to live near polluted industrial sites if they live in financially strapped communities’ (1994: 151). Similarly, Pulido argued: ‘it is . . . the poor and marginalized who often bear the brunt of pollution and resource degradation – whether a toxic dump, a lack of arable land, or global climate change – simply because they are more vulnerable and lack alternatives’ (Pulido 1996: xv-xvi). The anti-toxic movement joined with the movement against environmental racism in Amer ican urban centres. Benjamin Chavis, coined the term ‘environmental racism’ stating:
environmental racism is racial discrimination in environmental policy making and enforcement of regulations and laws, the deliberate targeting of communities of colour for toxic waste facilities, the official sanctioning of the presence of life threatening poisons and pollutants in communities of
colour, and the history of excluding people of colour from leadership of the environmental movement.
