ABSTRACT
Bearing in mind that enforcement can improve environmental justice, this chapter discusses the important aspects of enforcement, examines the impediments to enforcement in the US, and the impact of the US Executive Order upon environmental justice.
It finds that robust and innovative enforcement strategies and mechanisms in the US have helped in reducing environmental injustice. It also finds that though there are reports of failures of Executive Order enforcement and other enforcement shortcomings, the US has made considerable progress, especially with the invigoration of environmental justice enforcement activities by President Obama’s Administration. It further finds that private enforcement invigorates latent citizen suits provisions, reduces enforcement failures as they have spurred government enforcers, increases government enforcement efforts, emboldens the government to maintain and sharpen its focus, helped in reducing capture, widened decisions, and led to the imposition of higher penalties which positively impact upon the enforcement of US oil pollution laws and in effect improved environmental justice.
It concludes that though the government retains a dominant position in enforcement it has lost the enforcement monopoly, especially with citizen suit provisions. It recommends what Nigeria and other developing countries could learn from the US.
