What does the language of human rights bring to campaigns for environmental justice?

Abstract

This article considers recent work promoting environmental human rights and asks whether such an approach is sound and strategically advisable. Taking as its starting point two recent books advocating different interpretations of environmental human rights, this article asks what can be gained from such a strategy, but also addresses the much-neglected question of what problems the human rights paradigm brings with it. Given that most of those who have advocated environmental human rights have done so while excluding from discussion the philosophical problems underlying universal human rights and strains in the consensus on human rights, this inquiry is a timely intervention in an important and growing literature. The conclusion reached here is that while the idea of environmental human rights has much to offer, there are problems with human rights that undermine the benefits that might be gained by presenting claims for environmental justice in the language of human rights.