Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-5b777bbd6c-w9n4q Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-06-23T17:51:06.188Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

15 - Competing narratives of justice in North–South environmental relations: the case of ozone layer depletion

from Part IV - North–South concerns in global contexts

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 June 2009

By
Karin Mickelson
Edited by
Jonas Ebbesson  and
Phoebe Okowa
Jonas Ebbesson
Affiliation:
Stockholms Universitet
Phoebe Okowa
Affiliation:
Queen Mary University of London
Get access

Summary

Introduction

We live in a time in which issues of environmental protection and human poverty are near the top of the international agenda. Concerns about justice and injustice are inextricably linked with both. There is often a tendency to separate out the two, so that justice in the environmental context is seen as relating to the proper relationship between humans and the natural world, while justice in the human context is seen as relating to the bonds that unite us to those of our own species within and across borders. Furthermore, these issues are sometimes seen as competing for scarce resources, so that some of those seemingly concerned about Third World poverty view it as an excuse to delay or avoid action on the environmental front. Such views go back to the time of the 1972 Stockholm Conference on the Human Environment. In her statement at the Conference, then Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi asserted:

We do not want to impoverish [the] environment any further…[but] we cannot forget the grim poverty of large numbers of people. When they themselves feel deprived how can we urge the preservation of animals? How can we speak to those who live in villages and in slums about keeping the oceans, rivers and the air clean when their own lives are contaminated at the source. Environment cannot be improved in conditions of poverty.

Type
Chapter
Information
Environmental Law and Justice in Context , pp. 297 - 315
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2009

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Book purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Anand, R. P., 1980. ‘Development and Environment: The Case of Developing Countries’. 24 Indian Journal of International Law1–19.Google Scholar
Andersen, S. O., and Sarma, K., 2002. Protecting the Ozone Layer: The United Nations History 100. London: Earthscan.Google Scholar
Aristotle, , 1962. Nicomachean Ethics, Book Five. Martin, Oswald, trans., Indianapolis: Library of Liberal Arts.Google Scholar
Beitz, C., 1983. ‘Cosmopolitan Ideals and National Sentiment’. 80 Journal of Philosophy591.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Benedick, R. E., 1998. Ozone Diplomacy: New Directions in Safeguarding the Planet, enlarged edn, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Harris, P. G., 2001. International Equity and Global Environmental Politics: Power and Principles in US Foreign Policy. Aldershot: Ashgate.Google Scholar
Mickelson, K., 1998. ‘Rhetoric and Rage: Third World Voices in International Legal Discourse’. 16 Wisconsin International Law Journal353.Google Scholar
Mickelson, K., 2000. ‘South, North, International Environmental Law and International Environmental Lawyers’. 11 Yearbook of International Environmental Law52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nussbaum, M., 2006. Frontiers of Justice, Disability, Nationality, Species, Membership. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Nussbaum, M., and Sen, A., 1993. The Quality of Life. Oxford: Clarendon Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pogge, T., 2002. World Poverty and Human Rights: Cosmopolitan Responsibilities and Reforms. London: Polity Press.Google Scholar
Rawls, J., 1999. The Law of Peoples. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Shue, H., 1992. ‘The Unavoidability of Justice’, in Andrew, Hurrell and Benedict, Kingsbury (eds.), The International Politics of the Environment. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 373.Google Scholar
Weinrib, E. J., 2002. Corrective Justice in a Nutshell. 52 University of Toronto Law Journal34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×