by Dina Lupin
The GNHRE will publish five blog posts written by final-year students who participated in the ‘Environmental Justice and the Law‘ module at the University of Southampton this year. Throughout the module, we tried to untangle the complex interrelationships between law (and, in some cases, its absence) and different kinds of environmental justice. We looked at examples of climate injustice, water injustice, ocean injustice, more-than-human & animal injustice, intergenerational injustice, administrative injustice, epistemic injustice, transport injustice, pollution injustice, gender injustice, Indigenous Peoples experiences of injustice, and protected areas injustice, among other topics. We explored these interrelationships through a series of case studies, looking at the complex and intimate relationships we have with the law and with our environments. These case studies revealed the devastating impacts of intersecting environmental crises. They shed light on law’s role in creating conditions of environmental degradation and suffering, as well as in addressing environmental harm. We invited activists, lawyers, and scholars involved in these cases to talk to the students, to showcase the incredible work that is being done (and needs to be done) in response to injustices, and the creative and generative ways in which people are using the law to fight back against environmental oppression.
As future law graduates, we wanted the students to understand both the potential and the limits of law as a tool of environmental justice. In law schools, we tend to train students to think about law as something to be interpreted and applied. In the context of environmental crises, however, it is also important to consider how law can be stretched, reinvented, revolutionised and, sometimes, ignored and circumvented. For their blog posts, students were asked to find an example of an environmental injustice (broadly understood) and to critically interrogate how law creates, aggravates or remedies this environmental injustice.
We hope you enjoy reading the posts!
- Shadows over the Arctic: Legal Battles for Indigenous Environmental Justice in Norway by Ramadan Metalia
- Beneath the Surface: The Plight of Bouazar’s Cobalt Miners by Salma Bennagi
- The Flint Water Crisis: A Real American Horror Story by Eva-Mae Eighteen
- Tainted Tides: Caitlin Edwards’ Struggle Against Environmental Injustice by Agata Sudol
- “A Horror Story” – How the Law Simultaneously Addresses and Facilitates Environmental Racism in ‘Cancer Alley’ by Leyla Bakhoukh-Choy