Document Type
Article
Publication Date
Summer 1-1-2012
Abstract
This article focuses on the domestic context, where the issues have more concretely crystallized around viewing environmental justice issues from a civil rights framework, and also from a competing environmental law framework. The article will begin with a discussion of the limitations of each of these frameworks, and will then explore the current "disconnect" between these two models, ending with an exploration of how the principles of sustainability fit into the picture. As to the latter point, sustainability is a double-edged sword. It might be used to maintain the inequity of the status quo; and, particularly in light of climate change, sustainability might be used to unintentionally create a new kind of inequity. On the more positive side, a framework oriented towards sustainability, if coupled with sensitivity towards environmental justice concerns, might help bridge the chasm in the current discourse about environmental justice, and provide the space, in a manner of speaking, where more common ground can be meaningfully explored.
Publication Title
Journal Environmental & Sustainability Law
Volume
19
Issue
1
First Page
34
Recommended Citation
Eileen Gauna,
Environmental Law, Civil Rights and Sustainability: Three Frameworks for Environmental Justice,
19
Journal Environmental & Sustainability Law
34
(2012).
Available at:
https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/law_facultyscholarship/449
