Remaking Environmental Justice

Authors

Clifford Villa, University of New Mexico - School of LawFollow

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2020

Abstract

From movements for civil rights in the 1960s and environmental protection in the 1970s, the environmental justice movement emerged in the 1980s and 1990s to highlight the disparate impacts of pollution, principally upon people of color and low-income communities. Over time, the scope of environmental justice expanded to address concerns for other dimensions of diversity. New and continuing challenges tell us that we need to reframe our understanding of environmental justice to ensure better protection for people going forward. One way to reframe this understanding may be to apply the heuristic of vulnerability analysis as proposed by legal theorist Martha Fineman and subsequent scholars. Starting from recognition that vulnerability is inherent in the human condition, vulnerability theory has already been explored in a variety of contexts but has yet to be fully investigated as a means for reframing environmental justice for future application. This article urges further consideration of vulnerability theory in the environmental justice context. It specifically proposes a new definition of "environmental justice" to incorporate vulnerability theory in order to assist policymakers and community advocates with identifying the people most at risk from environmental hazards and most in need of attention to protect their health and safety.

Publication Title

Loyola Law Review

Volume

66

First Page

469

Last Page

521

Keywords

vulnerability theory, Martha Fineman, EJ, Environmental Justice

Recommended Citation

Clifford Villa, Remaking Environmental Justice, 66 Loyola Law Review 469 (2020).
Available at: https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/law_facultyscholarship/846