While there has always been a quest for equity among countries in using and caring for the environment, there is a growing realization that environmental equity extends to future generations and speaks to poor communities within countries. The poor are often disproportionately exposed to toxic chemicals and contaminated waste sites, breathe dirty air, rink polluted water, and are forced by poverty to exploit soils, forests and other resources in an unsustainable manner. The benefits of industrialization accrue disproportionately to the wealthy. This is especially the case in countries in which there is little social mobility. It is thus poor people within countries who should be major champions of sustainable development.
Many states may regard international consideration of the distribution of environmental burdens within states as intrusive. But the challenge will grow. Nongovernmental organizations and others may become active champions of environmental justice within their own countries and across borders. In the United States there is a growing movement for environmental justice, which is targeted against environmental contamination of poor neighborhoods. International law can provide a normative framework for ensuring that economic development does not take place on the environmental backs of the poor.
As indicated at the outset, international environmental law is in transition. While it is expanding rapidly in scope and coverage, we are nonetheless still developing the intellectual framework and defining the contours of the subject. We have made enormous progress in the last two decades. Concern with international environmental issues has brought new openness to the international legal system, fostered new actors and new constituencies, and tightly linked national and international law. In many ways the new directions of international environmental law reflect broad changes that are taking place in the international legal system. How we manage these directions will have important implications not only for sustainable development and the robustness of the human environment, but also for the international legal order in the decades to come.
Many states may regard international consideration of the distribution of environmental burdens within states as intrusive. But the challenge will grow. Nongovernmental organizations and others may become active champions of environmental justice within their own countries and across borders. In the United States there is a growing movement for environmental justice, which is targeted against environmental contamination of poor neighborhoods. International law can provide a normative framework for ensuring that economic development does not take place on the environmental backs of the poor.
As indicated at the outset, international environmental law is in transition. While it is expanding rapidly in scope and coverage, we are nonetheless still developing the intellectual framework and defining the contours of the subject. We have made enormous progress in the last two decades. Concern with international environmental issues has brought new openness to the international legal system, fostered new actors and new constituencies, and tightly linked national and international law. In many ways the new directions of international environmental law reflect broad changes that are taking place in the international legal system. How we manage these directions will have important implications not only for sustainable development and the robustness of the human environment, but also for the international legal order in the decades to come.