Global Citizenship and Environmental Justice (At the Interface Probing the Boundaries 17) (At the Interface Probing the Boundaries)

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Global Citizenship and Environmental Justice

At the Interface

Series Editor Dr Robert Fisher Dr Margaret Sönser Breen

Advisory Board Professor Margaret Chatterjee Professor Michael Goodman Dr Jones Irwin Professor Asa Kasher Revd Stephen Morris

Professor John Parry Dr David Seth Preston Professor Peter Twohig Professor S Ram Vemuri Professor Bernie Warren Revd Dr Kenneth Wilson, O.B.E

Volume 17 A volume in the Probing the Boundaries project ‘Environmental Justice and Global Citizenship’

Probing the Bounderies

Global Citizenship and Environmental Justice

Edited by

Tony Shallcross and John Robinson

Amsterdam - New York, NY 2006

The paper on which this book is printed meets the requirements of “ISO 9706:1994, Information and documentation - Paper for documents Requirements for permanence”. ISBN: 90-420-1668-X ©Editions Rodopi B.V., Amsterdam - New York, NY 2006 Printed in the Netherlands

Contents Preface

ix

Section A: What Identifies Discourse as Interdisciplinary? Is there a Common Language of Environmental Justice and Global Citizenship? Tony Shallcross and John Robinson

3

Section B: Concepts of Environmental Justice and the Law The Multiple and Competing Conceptions of Environmental Justice John Callewaert A Conceptual Framework for Environmental Justice Based on Shared but Differentiated Responsibilities Asghar Ali

21

41

Section C: Global Citizenship, Trade and Environmental Justices Fairtrade and the International Moral Economy: Within and Against the Market Gavin Fridell

81

Law, Civil Society and Transnational Environmental Advocacy Networks Paul Street

95

The Triple Bottom Line as a Business Basic? Corporate Citizenship and Sustainability: A Rio Tinto Case Study David Birch

117

Section D: Applying Environmental Justice Dysfunctional Technology Transfer: The Challenge of Global Markets David E Smith and J. Robert Skalnik Agricultural Biotechnology and Human Rights Kristen Hessler Contrast is a Must! The Architect as Environmentalist TANGRAM Architekten

133

145 155

Section E: Education, Environmental Justice, Global Citizenship and Deep Ecology Education for Sustainable Development as Applied Global Citizenship and Environmental Justice Tony Shallcross and John Robinson

About the Authors

175

195

Welcome to a Probing the Boundaries Project Environmental Justice and Global Citizenship is an inter-disciplinary and multi-disciplinary research project which aims to explore the role of ecology and environmental ideas in the context of contemporary society, international politics and global economics, and to begin to assess the implications for our understandings of fairness, justice and global citizenship. The project will develop a focus on four interlocking areas; Area 1: will examine the changing relationship between nature, culture, and society and will look at the impact of environmental thinking and ethics on issues such as animal/species welfare and rights, conservation and preservation, sustainable resources, food and feeding, space and air space, present and future needs, human ‘rights', and our obligations to future generations. Area 2 will examine the ethical and political impact of environmental thinking, looking at its emergence and role in political contexts, the factors which influence the formation of environmental policy, what (if any) is the place of economic methods and considerations, differing perspectives on the interpretation of scientific data, and the ability of national and international communities to successfully implement environmental policies. Area 3 will examine the international nature of environmental issues and look at the problem solving processes which are or might be employed particularly in light of globalisation. Themes will include how environmental negotiation works in the context of international relations, the responsibilities of multinational companies, the feasibility of establishing environmental ‘laws’, and the future of ecological ‘business’. Area 4 will examine the themes of justice, community and citizenship, looking at the tensions present in ecological debates, the influence of cultural values, the meaning of ethical business practice, the assessment of what counts as environmental equality, inequality, and justice, and our responsibilities toward the world in which we live. Dr Robert Fisher Inter-Disciplinary.Net http://www.inter-disciplinary.net

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Preface This book focuses on the concepts of environmental justice and global citizenship form a number of different disciplinary perspectives with the intention of promoting at the very least some interdisciplinary understandings. The chapters in this volume were all initially presented as papers at an interdisciplinary conference on the themes of environmental justice and global citizenship in Copenhagen in February 2002. The papers were selected as chapters in this volume by election by those attending the conference. The interdisciplinary nature of the conference and its deliberately small size created many opportunities for discussion and the sharing of ideas in an unusual multidisciplinary context. This context benefited all those attending as they were exposed to perspectives on environmental justice and global citizenship from less personally esoteric subject areas. There was more discussion of environmental justice than global citizenship during the conference and although differences of opinion emerged, there were also glimmers of agreement in the conference as discussions of environmental justice and global citizenship inevitably led to considerations of sustainability and Agenda 21. Some degree of agreement did emerge around the idea of seeing sustainability as a process rather than a predetermined outcome. As most of the participants taught in higher education institutions there was also a shared interest in the pedagogy of educating students in and about sustainability. The volume has been divided into disciplinary or thematically based sections but the purpose of the introductory chapter is to draw links and connections between different papers and different themes in the volume.


Section A

What Identifies Discourse as Interdisciplinary?


Is there a Common Language of Environmental Justice and Global Citizenship? Tony Shallcross and John Robinson

The language of environmental justice and global citizenship are problematic. Terms such as environmental and citizenship have a multiplicity of contextualised meanings. For some the term environmental refers only to the natural world for others the concept of environmental has both ecological and social connotations. But it can be argued that without the inclusion of social, the term environmental justice becomes an oxymoron because we need a moral or legal agent before the term justice assumes any meaning. Neither is the term citizenship without its problems. There is clearly a view of citizenship that rests on the view of the citizen as someone with rights. Another, though not a mutually exclusive view, is that the citizen is someone with responsibilities. There are also cognitive views of citizenship that involve notions of political and civic literacy. In addition there are at least four political ideologies of citizenship; liberal, libertarian, republican and communitarian. All of these perceptions inform but make our notion of the global citizen complex. The conference, on which this volume draws, was predicated on the belief that we can carry on interdisciplinary discussions about crucial concepts such as environmental justice and global citizenship. This endeavour was also based on the assumption that the narratives of one disciplinary discourse are intelligible to those who reside in other storied residences (Cheney, 1989); that discourse can transcend or more accurately permeate subject boundaries. But if interdisciplinary dialogues about issues of environmental justice, global citizenship or sustainability become bricks in the an academic discourse that constructs a Tower of Babel, the quest for global citizenship, environmental justice and sustainability appears doomed. Environmental justice and global citizenship are clearly territories colonised by a number of subjects, they are not the exclusive domain of any single discipline. Everyday experience also tells us that issues of justice and citizenship draw on a synthesis of personal, contextual and codified knowledge. If we ask which academics would teach, discuss and write about environmental justice and/or global citizenship there would be a multitude of contenders. These might include philosophers, ecologists, lawyers, botanists, ethicists, biologists, economists, sociologists, engineers, educationalists, political scientists, geographers and so on. But these very disciplinary based distinctions may

Is there a Common Language of Environmental Justice? 4 ___________________________________________________________ problematise the quest for interdisciplinary talk and its consequent more holistic understanding. Is interdisciplinarity an overlapping of coloured glass disks in which each discipline retains its own identity but contributes to a changing but perhaps darkening Venn picture where the overlap occurs? Or does interdisciplinarity imply a transcendent realisation of the bigger more illuminated picture in which we lose our sense of subject, in at least two senses of this word, as we progressively come to grasp the interpenetrating nature of this bigger interdisciplinary canvas. We have already alluded to the links between the debate about environmental justice and citizenship and questions of sustainability. Another issue that academics have to address is the effectiveness of our contribution to the achievement of just, globally sustainable lifestyles if we continue to root academic discourse in a paradigm that values adversariality above agreement and problematics above resolution. There are those who believe that the internecine turf wars that characterise much academic debate about sustainability is a luxury we can no longer afford (Wilson, 2002), we cannot concentrate on playing our academic fiddles however melodious their tunes while the Planet burns. To indulge in arcane intellectual debate, no matter how urbane, while failing to act for environmental justice is a failure of citizenship. This failure threatens to distance much intellectual debate from the day to day realities of those practitioners in public welfare, NGOs, the world of business and commerce and private life who have to grapple with the realities, failures of understanding, ambiguities, tensions and contradictions between conceptualisations of environmental justice and global citizenship and their concrete manifestations. 1.

Language as Second Nature

The search for interdisciplinary narratives illustrates vividly the need for both deconstructive and reconstructive strands in academic discourse. On the one hand language is part of the problem because of the inherent dualism in much of the terminology we deploy in our iterations about nature. On the other hand, without language, in its broadest sense, how do we share and communicate solutions? We have to find an answer to the dilemma of using the language of dualism by inventing a language of holism and to replace the attitude of contest with the quest for agreement. We can only judge what is good and bad from within language, therefore both deconstruction and reconstruction are essential. What is clear is that terms such as nature, environment, justice citizenship and sustainability are contested, problematic terms. But if the main approach of academics to this problematic is only to deconstruct how

Tony Shallcross and John Robinson 5 ___________________________________________________________ do we achieve any degree of prognosis? Ali’s chapter in this book distinguishes between weak and strong sustainability but does so within the root metaphor of economism. Weak sustainability sees man made and natural capital as substitutes whereas strong sustainability sees them as complements. Foster (2001) argues for deep sustainability which is “… not a measurable condition or trend, but a particular way of being humanly alert to and alive through the world” (Foster, 2001, 160), a process focused vision of sustainability more in concert with the spirit of education, justice and citizenship identified in this volume. In the process of deconstruction we need to acknowledge that the logocentrism of modernist language and discourse has marginalised and silenced nature (Manes, 1992, Rockefeller, 2001) by portraying anthropocentrism as both dominant and workable thereby legitimating a dialogue of the deaf (Dimbleby, 2001). Positivist, modernist science, when it claims that its language reflects reality, manifests hierarchical, dualistic thinking and makes a bid for hegemony by diminishing the status of other language games such as literature and traditional narratives. The language of modernist science incorporates, destroys or ranks otherness while the common discussion of nature as feminine reinforces naturalism. There is a danger of the environmental discourse being dominated by the divisive, naturalistic language of modern science. Therefore there is a need to deconstruct both the scientific and vernacular languages of environmentalism and examine their discourses and whether or, indeed how, the language of modernist science can contribute to interdisciplinary understandings of environmental justice and global citizenship (Quigley, 1992). The language of modernist science is essentialist conveying a static rather than organically relational poststructuralist view of language. Those concerned with environmental justice and/or global citizenship should not only seek to clarify these terms in the contexts in which they appear but also to develop these contexts which will lead to an evolving semantics, rather than a search for apparently essentialist, incontestable meaning. Those seeking to illuminate global citizenship need to recognise that European languages in general and English in particular convey a largely separate, dualistic sense of humanity and nature (Bowers, 1997): “[W]ords that can transcend operationalist and behaviourist facts have been losing their linguistic representation” (Jickling, 2001, 175). In modernist education where rational and critical thinking are the hallmarks of understanding, the contextual interdisciplinary knowledge of ecocentrism has no claim to validity (Pivnik, 1997). Valued activities are

Is there a Common Language of Environmental Justice? 6 ___________________________________________________________ defined by the root metaphor of myopic economism, through hierarchical terms such as social capital. The relationships that language helps us to understand and negotiate have environmental and research dimensions that are all too frequently overlooked. “The influence of culture, particularly the role of language in providing the schemata that contributes to thinking in conceptual and moral categories of the language community is totally ignored” (Bowers, 1997, 107). Despite the deconstruction of modern perspectives by radical environmental philosophies, the cultural belief system of the dominant Western paradigm, limits the possibility of seeing life differently. Culture defines what is admissible what is second nature, it limits our ability to see other possibilities (Pivnik, 1997). Finding the language to speak otherwise, within the dominant Western paradigm poses a challenge for the supporters of interdisciplinary, ecocentric cosmologies. But there is a deja-vu about comprehending the language of ecocentrism, to some extent we already need to be there, to grasp its environmental semiotics. Bowers (2001) identifies five root metaphors of language; economism, anthropocentrism, linear progress, individualism and mechanism that purvey modernist second naturedness (Smyth, 2002). Second naturedness is inherited through language that encodes the metaphorical thinking of earlier people who were, in turn, influenced by the metaphorically based schemata of still earlier people (Bowers, 1993). While metaphor and exploration are crucial to understanding interdisciplinary debates (Callicott, 1996) about concepts such as environmental justice and global citizenship, if we continue to research and confer within the semantics of the metaphors that constitute the modernist language game our understanding of not only the old but also the new will be compromised (Smyth, 2002). “These root metaphors provide a taken-for-granted conceptual framework that frames the process of analogic thinking used to understand new phenomena” (Bowers, 2001, 143). The main problem, as Bowers (1993) sees it, is how the root metaphors of cultural groups can be changed. Engaging with new root metaphors such as ecology foregrounds the interrelational and interdependent nature of our existence as cultural and biological beings (Bowers, 2002) and clearly involves language games. To repair damaged environmental relationships in the search for environmental justices we have to rectify language. Language has to be deconstructed and reconstructed not only for analytical but also prognostic reasons. Achieving environmentally just, sustainable lifestyles requires a transformation in our language so that valuing the ecological and the

Tony Shallcross and John Robinson 7 ___________________________________________________________ social equally becomes second nature. The consequences of not transforming language means reform without change. But if we believe that language thinks us, as we think, within the epistemic possibilities of our language community (Bowers, 2001) then language is not a conduit of objective knowledge in a sender/receiver model of communication but it does perpetuate culturally specific ways of thinking (Bowers, 2002). But as Naess (Reed and Rothenberg, 1993) demonstrates, language is still open to individual interpretation. Naess argues that when two people communicate they interpret what the other says according to the particular understandings of the meanings of each other’s words and syntax. “So the question of what the other person means can only be addressed by using our own system and style of interpretation” (Reed and Rothenberg, 1993, 66). Language has to evolve in order to address new global and environmental realities. Begg (2000) argues, following Foucault, that discourse does not merely conceal power, in a deeper sense it is the power structure, therefore to achieve the postmodern turn to environmental justice we need a different, more powerful, dominant, environmental discourse. Begg’s view links closely with Austin’s speech-act theory, that language has a performative function. The ways in which language becomes a causal force are obviously crucial to an educational enterprise concerned with changing actions and values. A transformative educational paradigm requires a transformative language: “If we want a more humanistic, democratic and educational paradigm, then we must find the ideas and language to help create it” (Sterling, 2001, 14). To achieve transformative change requires a strong form of environmental or ecological literacy (Orr, 1992) based on a language of possibility and critical discourse (Fullan, 1999). But there are dangers with critique and deconstruction. They can be solely reactive and diagnostic. By emphasising the magnitude of environmental problems and the hegemonic power of the institutions and structures identified as the perpetrators of these problems critique and deconstruction can induce apathy through a process of learned helplessness if students learn that there is no contingency between actions and outcomes (Maier and Seligman, 1976, Payne, 2000). Derrida acknowledges this dilemma: Operating necessarily from the inside, borrowing all the strategic and economic resources of subversion from the old structure, borrowing them structurally, that is to say without being able to isolate their elements and atoms, the enterprise

Is there a Common Language of Environmental Justice? 8 ___________________________________________________________ of deconstruction always in a certain way falls prey to its own work (Derrida, 1996, 355). Thus transformation to a just, global, sustainable society requires hope, a theory of learned optimism and a language which conveys this knowledge and emotion (Seligman, 1991); a language of desperate, optimistic possibility that can generate risky thoughts and engage hope. This would be a language that mingles immanent critique and transfigurative desire. But big optimism (Peterson, 2000) per se is not a precondition for transformation. Many eco-warriors are pessimistic about the long-term ecological future (Scarce with Brower, 1990). But the little optimism (Peterson, 2000), manifest in local actions that lead humanity to live more lightly on the planet, would certainly broaden the scope of the environmental movement; the little optimism that I and we can make a difference, we can and we will. However, in the reconstructive sense of postmodernism we need to celebrate the language of ambiguity and diversity and seek agreement through the integration of scientific, ethical, aesthetic and spiritual intuitions and languages. But agreement should not be interpreted here as the authoritarian imposition of consensus. For as Zimmerman observes: “Only in listening to the voice of someone who does not share one's own perspective can one discover its limitations” (Zimmerman, 1994, 272). But in discovering limitations we have the choice of synthesis or antithesis. The plea here is that the culture of academia becomes more synthetic and less adversarial not that academics cease to be involved in intellectual challenge. The conference on which this volume is based clearly posited the need for a quest for a holistic rather than disciplinary approach to epistemology, if not cosmology. This is a quest for a web of life and knowledge (Capra, 1996) rooted in perception and cognition that requires the integration of multiple intelligences (Gardner, 1993) while acknowledging that human consciousness will probably never be able to grasp fully the holism, the interdisciplinarity, of which it is part (Stables and Scott, 2002). It is for you to judge how successful the authors in this volume have been in providing narratives that synthesise, enable, illuminate and perhaps empower. Discussions of environmental justice and global citizenship also raises the issue of identity. Concepts such as environmental justice and global citizenship are closely linked with procedures as well as outcomes. Can academics approach these discussions solely from the relative emotional security of our own academic laagers and language without considering our own responsibilities as individual citizens? Is this debate

Tony Shallcross and John Robinson 9 ___________________________________________________________ philosophical and theoretical in the narrowest sense or is it a debate that has to engage with praxis and action? Do academics perceive their role and responsibilities from a modernist fragmented sense of self in which professional roles are ethically and epistemologically distinct from personal lives? Or as academics interested in environmental justice and global citizenship who encounter interdisciplinary or even transdisciplinary or paradsiciplinary ideas are we committed to a more integrated, holistic postmodern view of self in which distinctions between personal and professional are seen as arbitrary, artificial, modernist, academic devices (MacIntyre, 1996)? No matter what the decisions which we make as academics about environmental justice and global citizenship in respect of our fellow travellers we need to recognise that one of the main problems that arises in relation to many of the arguments developed in this book is their ‘argumentativeness’. Lines are drawn. Cases are made. Partisans group and regroup. Distinctions are drawn and pointed to. Differences are privileged over similarities in arguments. The language of critical debate is critical. It is a language replete with ‘barriers’ (including our own languaging of the debate developed in this book). The language of debate is a language of inhospitability. As such arguments are about means rather than ends - theory and practice arguments. We write/rite the right approach, distinguishing it from the wrong approach. Drawing the lines encircles the camps. We recognise the problems of the otherising of nature in the debates about social and environmental justice, whilst at the same time otherising our interlocutors. Our languaging of the arguments is a language of violence, through language, to each other. Heterogeneity becomes homogeneity’s horizon, and vice versa. We are caught in the ‘abyssal, elliptical, paradoxical, and, for that matter, undecidable ‘ (Derrida, 2000, p.53) undecidability of a postmodern form of rigour mortis. Is there another way, another journey to be made? But what if writing and reading were not an act of compromising, encircling, line drawing, borderlining? What if writing and reading transgressed inhospitable writing and reading? What if writing compromised the reader, obligated the reader, to read hospitably rather than inhospitably? The apparent hospitality of the insider reader is, at the same time, enacting inhospitable reading to outsider writers. Reading which gives place, forfeits place to the (unknown or unnamed) writer is hospitable reading. What would the language of writing look like then, when we read hospitably? Well, would it matter? Would it matter more that we read like the blind lady? Rather than reading with the preconditionality of acceptance and rejection as each other’s horizons, what if reading was about forfeiting place to a legacy that has yet to come?

Is there a Common Language of Environmental Justice? 10 ___________________________________________________________ This polylingual reading and writing opens up a hospitality to (new, different) ideas. It does not erase the self-defeating, internecine, uncivil wars of academic adversariality of which we wrote earlier. But it might make the wounds easier to bear. (Whilst at the same time, probably, opening up new battle-lines – fighting over what it might mean, for example, to be a praxtitioner – as a legacy yet to come.) Hospitality requires us (us!) to be bound, connected, related to each other by a different sort of narrative than the narrative of otherising. This narrative would not speak of academics/practitioners, of theorists/activists, of values/actions, of shallow/deep, of dominant/subordinate, of authentic/inauthentic, of ideals/realities – in which each of these paired antimonies (and many others) form each other’s horizons. A hospitable narrative would be an inclusive narrative. It would be a narrative which opens up a/the space between the horizons, rather than one which asks us, requires us, to choose one horizon over/beyond the other. Is the hospitable narrative the transformative narrative of para rather than interdisciplinarity that will ensure environmental justice and global citizenship? . 2. Links Between Sections and Chapters The distinction between libertarian and more communalist conceptions of citizenship is a clear theme in the chapters that form the first two section of this volume. The first chapter in Section B by John Callewaert addresses many of the problematic concepts inherent in discussions of environmental justice set against three case studies from the USA. He acknowledges that environmental injustice usually affects the socially and economically disadvantaged disproportionately. Environmental is clearly seen by Callewaert as a holistic concept that incorporates socio-economic and ecological processes. The view of justice he presents is largely distributive in tone. He argues that in placing equity at the heart of the debate over environmental policy the environmental justice movement is playing an historic role. An interesting and connecting theme with other chapters in this volume is the strong assertion that community empowerment and stakeholders’ conceptions of justice are important in the process of addressing environmental justice. Ashgar Ali’s chapter on the same theme of justice also discusses the problematic nature of environmental justice and, not least, in an environmental context the fundamentally anthropocentric origins of the concept of justice. He introduces the idea that environmentalism in general and sustainable development in particular have caused a radical rethink in our views of the relationships between notions of both environment and

Tony Shallcross and John Robinson 11 ___________________________________________________________ justice. Ali also touches on similar issues of differentiation issues to Callewaert but he addresses issues of justice in relation to the differentiated responsibilities of actors, for example in relation to their contribution to environmental degradation rather than the disproportionate impact of such degradation on less socially advantaged groups. This notion gels well with discussions of the roles of structure and agency in resolving the environmental crisis that permeate many of the chapters in this volume. Ali’s advocacy of procedural justice also links strongly with notions of education for sustainable development as a process that influence much of the thinking in section E of this volume. Section C takes into chapters that are more focused on concrete applications of environmental justice and global citizenship, particularly in the fields of business, trade and non governmental organisations. Friddell’s chapter focuses on the issues of fairtrade illustrating his argument with particular reference to the trade in coffee. While discussing the moral case for fairtrade, Friddell does recognise that fairtrade has to succeed in the market place. Thus while fairtrade challenges the social injustices that emerge from free market systems it still has to operate as a commercial activity. At heart fairtrade while seeking market opportunities must challenge the imperatives of the global market place if it is to be a real alternative to the exploitative capitalist system. Friddell also examines the ways in which multi national companies have responded to the fairtrade movement in coffee. Friddell’s chapter like Ali’s raises the issue of personal responsibility when he argues that for fairtrade to succeed it has to raise consumers’ awareness so that they act for environmental justice through purchasing fairly traded products. Street’s chapter challenges some of our conceptions about the role of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) as advocates of environmental justice. His chapter returns us to more legal notions of environmental justice. He points out that while there are large numbers of NGOs (around 2 million in the USA alone) that these bodies strictly have no legal personality. Many of the more powerful NGOs draw most of their membership from Northern countries and have their headquarters in these countries. Street questions how representative of the views of the citizens of Southern countries such NGOs are. Indeed he argues that our conception of NGOs is largely associated with such large scale, international non-profit making organisations. Yet most NGOs are much more localised in their areas of influence and responsibility. A crucial point is that NGOs extend beyond civil society organisations and therefore these terms should not be conflated. Street then examines the legal capacity of NGOs and their problems in raising issues of environmental justice in the civil courts. His chapter concludes by looking at the

Is there a Common Language of Environmental Justice? 12 ___________________________________________________________ difficulties that NGOs face in acting as advocates for environmental justice within international organisations when their lack of legal standing in international law limits them to the role of participant observers. The final chapter in this section by David Birch takes us into the world of business but also returns us to themes on stakeholder involvement raised in Callewaert’s chapter. At the heart of Birch’s chapter is the notion of corporate social responsibility. Birch’s assertion is that corporate social responsibility is not only an issue of justice and corporate global citizenship, it is also good business; it is part of the triple bottom line on which sustainable business practice needs to be based. His chapter illustrates how Rio Tinto has sought to incorporate the concept of corporate social responsibility into its business by seeking the participation of local communities as stakeholders in its business practices. Section D ‘Applying Environmental Justice’ begins with a chapter by David E Smith and J Robert Skalnick. Their chapter focuses on biotechnology, which is predicted to have an enormous impact on agriculture, as well as numerous other industries. They argue that in addition to revolutionary advances in diagnosis, pharmaceuticals, vaccines, and hormones, biotechnology offers the capability of modifying the genetic structure of animals and plants to improve quality, yields, and resistance. Development and marketing of the genetically altered plants and the use of genetically engineered hormones in animals are the two significant applications they go on to say. Worldwide, the agricultural market is expected to become the largest single market for biotechnological processes and products. Drawing on a report from OECD (1989) Smith and Skalnik predicts that new biotechnological techniques in agriculture will result in dynamic developments with far-reaching implications for the entire agricultural-industrial complex. The proposed shifts in emphasis in agriculture from quantity to quality and from food surpluses to new industrial products calls for structural transformation in agribusiness, and for changes in the interaction between agriculture and industry. They conclude that advances which scientifically aware people consider to be less risky may, in fact, lead to extra anxiety among those who do not understand the progress of biotechnology, or who lack confidence in the way in which this new “power” is applied. This is followed by a chapter from TANGRAM Architects from the Netherlands. TANGRAM are concerned about the ever increasing densification of human dwellings and its impact on the earth. They suggest that there is a growing realization that we cannot continue to concrete over 'vacant' land is increasingly resulting in buildings in which dual land use and a mix of functions are integrated. Increasing the density

Tony Shallcross and John Robinson 13 ___________________________________________________________ of the existing urban structures is now essential in order to preserve the scarce natural resources and to increase the contrast between unbuilt and built-up areas. In practice, they argue, this is giving rise to new typologies, which do not automatically fit into existing frameworks. From this point they suggest that the design task now comprises not only an architectural scheme, but also involves a variety of sub-areas that are outside the range of the architect or urban designer. TANGRAM is carrying out research into the possibilities and consequences of high-density development, both in theory and in practice and in this chapter they report on high to very high-density schemes that they are involved. Their departure-point is not the maximization of density, but rather the creation of attractive living, working and social environments with high, but acceptable building densities. The final chapter in section D is a contribution from Kristen Hessler, which focuses on the fact that scientists, farmers, consumers, environmentalists and agribusinesses are already interested in agricultural biotechnology. She argues that human rights advocates should be interested as well, because the products of biotechnology have significant potential on impact human rights, for better or worse. While some are tempted to treat biotechnology as a monolithic force for good or evil, Hessler contends that each biotech product must be evaluated individually in terms of likely consequences of its widespread use and its potential role in an overall strategy for the promotion of human rights. She goes on to suggest that human rights advocates should seriously consider genetically modified (GM) crops as strategies, or components of strategies, to combat particular human rights problems. At the same time, she agues, they should pay close attention to possible threats to human rights that might result from the imprudent use of biotechnology. In this final chapter of Section D Hessler describes the connections between biotechnology and human rights, and she sketches out the kinds of facts that human rights advocates should consider when evaluating biotechnology. Kristen concludes that human rights advocates must consider such specific information about particular applications of biotechnology in order to evaluate biotechnology from a human rights perspective. Given the claims made by both proponents and opponents of biotechnology, human rights advocates should seriously assess any GM crops that might be relevant to their mission. Section E contains a chapter from the editors. This section concerns the relationships between educational processes, environmental justice, global citizenship and a deep ecology perspective. In the final chapter the editors argue for an education that is an education as active global citizenship and environmental justice. This is an education that is

Is there a Common Language of Environmental Justice? 14 ___________________________________________________________ concerned with process, with journey with how we educate rather than an education that is concerned with outcomes, with destinations with what education is about. They argue that this is not a rejection of knowledge and cognition but a recognition that that while knowledge and understanding are necessary they are not sufficient to promote global citizenship or environmental justice on a societal basis. A process focused education as active global citizenship or environmental justice cannot occur in a cognitive vacuum, processes are only elaborated and learned in the context of content. The importance question is who makes the decisions about this content. The editors conclude that when we have education as global citizenship and environmental justice decisions about content will be made at a local level and will address real issues that give education a high degree of authenticity because citizenship education is not just an education in political and civic literacy but an education and as active citizenship. Cognitively this will lead to an education in understanding as well as knowledge.

References Begg, A. (2000), Empowering the Earth: strategies for social change. Dartington: Green Books. Bowers, C.A. (1993), Some questions about the theoretical foundations of W. Fox's transpersonal ecology and Arne Naess' ecosophy t, Trumpeter. 10 (3) [iuicode: http://www.icaap.org/ iuicode ?6.10.3.2] Bowers, C.A. (1997), The culture of denial, why the environmental movement needs a strategy for reforming universities and public schools. Albany: State University of New York Press. Bowers, C.A. (2001), ‘How language limits our understanding of environmental education’, Environmental education research, 7(2): 14151. Bowers, C.A. (2002), ‘Toward an eco-justice pedagogy’, Environmental education research. 8(1): 21-34.

Tony Shallcross and John Robinson 15 ___________________________________________________________ Callicott, J.B. (1996), ‘Benevolent symbiosis the philosophy of conservation reconstructed’, in: J.B Callicott. and F.J.R. da Rocha (eds.) Earth summit ethics towards a reconstructive postmodern philosophy of environmental education, Albany: State University of New York Press. 139-59. Capra, F. (1996), The web of life. New York: Anchor Books. Cheney, J. (1989), ‘Postmodern environmental ethics: ethics as bioregional narrative’, Environmental ethics. 11(2): 117-34. Derrida, J. (1996), ‘The end of the book and the beginning of writing’, in L. Cahoone (ed.) From modernism to postmodernism: an anthology. Oxford: Blackwell. 336-59. Derrida J. (2000), Demeure: Fiction and Testimony, translated by E. Rottenberg. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press. Dimbleby, J. (2001), ‘Change Is In The Air’, Resurgence. 207: 16-17. Foster, J. (2001), Education as sustainability’, Environmental education research, 7(2): 153-65. Fullan, M. (1999), Change forces; the sequel. London: Falmer Press. Gardner, H. (1993), The unschooled mind: how children think and how schools should teach. London: Fontana. Jickling, B. (2001), ‘Environmental thought, the language of sustainability, and digital watches’, Environmental education research, 7(2): 167-80. MacIntyre, A. (1996), ‘The virtues, the unity of a human life and the concept of a tradition’, in L. Cahoone (ed.) From modernism to postmodernism: an anthology. Oxford: Blackwell. 534-55. Maier, S.F. and M.E.P. Seligman (1976), ‘Learned helplessness: theory and evidence’, Journal of experimental psychology: general. 105: 3-46. Manes, C. (1992), ‘Nature and silence’, Environmental ethics, 14(4): 33950.

Is there a Common Language of Environmental Justice? 16 ___________________________________________________________ Naess, A. (1989), Ecology, community and lifestyle. Translated and revised by D. Rothenberg, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Orr, D.W. (1992), Ecological literacy; education and the transition to a postmodern world. Albany: State University of New York Press. Payne, P. (2000), ‘Identity and environmental education’, Environmental education research. 7(1): 67-87. Peterson, C. (2000), ‘The future of optimism’, American psychologist. 55(1): 44-55. Pivnik, J. (1997), ‘Speaking from the deep: the problem of language in deep ecology education’, Trumpeter. 14 (2) [iuicode: http://www.icaap.org/iuicode?6.14.2.2] Quigley, P. (1992), ‘Rethinking resistance: environmentalism, literature and poststructural theory’, Environmental ethics, 14 (4): 291-306.

Reed, P. and D. Rothenberg (eds.) (1993), Wisdom in the open air, Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press. Rockefeller, S.C. (2001), The Earth Charter an ethical foundation’, Resurgence, 206: 32-34. Scarce, R. with D. Brower (1990), Eco-warriors understanding the radical environmental movement. Chicago: The Noble Press. Seligman, M.E.P. (1991), Learned optimism. New York: Knopf. Smyth, J. (2002), ‘Being leaned on’: social justice and the particular instance of researching teachers’ work in the self managing school’, Education and social justice, 4(2): 26-32 Stables, A. and W. Scott (2002), ‘The quest for holism in education for sustainable development’, Environmental education research. 8(1): 5361. Sterling, S. (2001), Sustainable education revisioning learning and change. Dartington: Green Books. Wilson, E.O. (2002), The future of life. London: Little, Brown Books.

Tony Shallcross and John Robinson 17 ___________________________________________________________ Zimmerman, M. E. (1994), Contesting Earth's future: radical ecology and postmodernity. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.


Section B

Concepts of Environmental Justice and the Law


The Multiple and Competing Conceptions of Environmental Justice John Callewaert

1.

Introduction and Environmental Justice Overview

One of the most salient debates in environmental policy today centres around racial and class biases in environmental protection and exposure to environmental risk. For more than a decade, community groups, activists, policy makers and others have discussed such biases under the framework of environmental justice. Environmental justice is both a social movement and a field of study that seeks to address the unequal distribution of environmental benefits and harms and asks whether procedures and impacts of environmental decision making are fair to the people they affect. In the USA, a primary issue for those concerned with environmental justice is that some groups, most often communities of colour and low-income, face a disproportionate exposure to environmental health risks such as air and water pollution and environmental hazards such as landfills, incinerators, sewage treatment plants, and polluting industries. Evidence of such disproportionate exposure is found in numerous empirical studies (Lester, Allen and Hill, 2001; Liu, 2001; Mohai and Bryant, 1992; Newton, 1996). In an analysis of 64 studies, Benjamin Goldman (1994) found an overwhelming body of empirical evidence that people of colour and lower incomes face disproportionate environmental impacts in the USA. All but one of the 64 studies (98%) found environmental disparities either by race or income, regardless of the kind of environmental concern or the level of geographical specificity examined (Goldman, 1994, 8). An incident in 1982, in Warren County, North Carolina, is often cited as the event that propelled environmental injustice, and more specifically environmental racism, into public awareness in the USA. In Warren County, a community mobilized in opposition to a state proposed landfill, in a predominantly African American community, for polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB) contaminated soil. Grassroots opposition followed the siting decision and grew into a movement that took on the atmosphere of a civil rights campaign (Hartley, 1995). The events of Warren County have been repeated in many communities across the country. There are hundreds of environmental justice organizations within the United States addressing a wide range of environmental concerns at

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Multiple and Competing Conceptions of Environmental Justice

the local, national and international levels. Together these efforts comprise the environmental justice movement (Taylor, 2000). Most scholars understand environmental justice to be a development of the past few decades. Other scholars, such as Harold Platt (2000) push back the origins of the intersections of race, class, power, and environmental concerns to the public health initiatives of the late 19th century as typified in the work of Jane Adams in the slums of the near west side of Chicago. For the most part these efforts were generally contested under the rubric of social as opposed to environmental problems (Gottlieb, 1993). With its historical roots in civil rights activism, the environmental justice movement and its members and leaders have often openly disclaimed any connection to the traditional or mainstream American environmental movement. A focus on more immediate human-oriented or anthropocentric goals, as opposed to more generalized ecocentric values, is characteristic of the environmental justice movement. 1 As such, environmental justice has been a marginal topic of debate within ethical and philosophical discussions of environmental issues, that have tended to focus more on animal rights, wilderness issues and value theories of nature (Hargrove, 2001). In some cases, the term environmental justice has been employed, but it concerns justice for non-human species as a result of environmental degradation rather than the disproportionate burden of environmental problems across human communities (Wenz, 1988; Stern and Dietz, 1994). In an effort to create an environmental justice policy framework over the past decade, the USA Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) and many state environmental agencies developed a wide range of environmental justice initiatives (Gaylord and Bell, 2001; Gerrard, 1999; Lester, Allen and Hill, 2001; Liu, 2001). One of the most widely discussed initiatives has been USEPA’s 1998 Interim Guidance for Investigating Title VI Administrative Complaints Challenging Permits (Corporate Watch, 1999; Mank, 1999). Drawing on the 1964 USA Civil Rights Act, the guidance established a mechanism for processing environmental justice complaints. The complaints allege discriminatory effects resulting from pollution control permit decisions by state and local governmental agencies that receive USEPA funding (USEPA, 1998). USEPA currently provides several billion dollars of federal funding under 44 different programs to about 1,500 recipients, including virtually all state or regional siting or permitting agencies. Since September 1993 USEPA has received more than 100 environmental justice complaints under Title VI. 2

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Environmental historian Martin Melosi (1995) suggests that because of its emphasis on race, class, the environment and its questioning of the goals and objectives of mainstream environmentalism, the environmental justice movement is playing a historic role in reintroducing equity into the public and academic debate over environmental policy in the USA. At a more fundamental level, though, there has not been adequate discussion of environmental justice with respect to theories of justice and social equity. Such a discussion can help to clarify notions of environmental justice and may also help to inform policy initiatives better. In order to explore the connections between theories of social justice and environmental justice, this chapter focuses on recent findings and analysis from a qualitative research study of three environmental justice complaints (or Title VI complaints) filed under USEPA’s Interim Guidance. The three Title VI complaints offer an exceptional perspective on some of the multiple and competing conceptions of environmental justice and social equity from among the three primary environmental justice stakeholders – community (both individuals and groups), government (state permitting agencies) and industry (regulated facilities). These competing conceptions of justice will be contrasted with various theories of justice in order to identify policy mechanisms for addressing environmental injustice. 2.

Research Study

The three complaints for this study were selected from the complete list of active Title VI complaint cases and held the greatest potential for examining the multiple and competing conceptions of environmental justice. All three involved long established communities that had been in conflict with local government and industry officials over environmental concerns for several years. As such they provided ample information from a variety of sources (personal interviews, official records, compliance reports, media accounts etc.). The study design was unique in that it focused on identifying the perspectives of the primary stakeholders – community groups or individuals, government agencies and industry. Previous work has mainly focused on the community perspective or the impact of environmental injustice. This is logical as communities of colour and low-income bear the brunt of environmental hazards. However, it is also important to examine the perspectives of other stakeholders in order to understand the full range of barriers and strategies for resolving environmental injustices. Site visits data collection and stakeholder interviews were conducted in the summer of 1999.

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One case concerns the complaint that was filed by the Alum Crest Acres Association and the Southside Community Action Association following the explosion in 1997 of an 8500 gallon kettle of formaldehyde, phenol and sulphuric acid at a Georgia-Pacific resins facility on the south side of Columbus, Ohio. Neighbours of the plant have complained about its safety for years and Ohio Environmental Protection Agency records confirm that there have been eight major spills at the plant since 1976 (Ohio EPA, 1997; Edwards, 1997). Residents filed the complaint following Ohio EPA’s decision to reissue a permit for the facility following the explosion. The complaint was filed in May 1998 and was accepted by USEPA for investigation in February 2000. The community and Georgia-Pacific recently made an out of court agreement of 22 million dollars. The money is to go to the affected community to cover legal fees, health monitoring, property damage claims and medical claims related to the explosion (Spencer, 2001). The complaint still remains open for investigation by USEPA. Another case involves the complaint filed in October 1998 by the Paper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical and Energy Workers International Union (PACE) and residents of Rillito, Arizona against the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality for permitting the expansion plans of the Arizona Portland Cement Company. Workers and residents were concerned about the expansion plans as Arizona Portland Cement had recently been fined $367,840 for violating state and county hazardous waste laws. The company had been caught burning benzene contaminated waste oil as fuel (Yozwiak, 1996). The complaint was accepted for investigation by USEPA in December 2001. The third case involves the complaint filed in September 1997 against the Illinois EPA for multiple permit decisions related to an incinerator in Robbins, Illinois. The complaint was filed by the South Cook Environmental Action Coalition – a citizens environmental group comprised of residents of Robbins and surrounding communities. Constructed in 1994, the incinerator in Robbins has been plagued by numerous permit violations including several uncontrolled fires. Representative Jesse L. Jackson, Junior, whose congressional district includes Robbins, stated that the facility’s smokestack towers over an archipelago of ageing industrial communities like the Washington monument of Chicago’s south suburbs (Jeter, 1998). USEPA accepted the complaint for investigation in October 1998. Table 1 provides demographic information on each of the communities. Using the permitted facilities as a focal point, 0-1 mile and 0-5 mile radii comparisons show that the percentage of people of colour

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(predominantly African Americans) is highest in the 0-1 mile radius and, in general, decreases as one moves out from the facility. At nearly every level of comparison, however, the percentage of people of colour is higher than the state or national rates, which according to USEPA (1997, 16) guidelines defines the community as a minority community for evaluating environmental justice concerns.

Table 1: Demographic Comparisons, One, and Five-Mile Radii from Facilities with State and National Percentages (M – miles). 3 Miles: COLUMBUS White Total People Of Colour RILLITO White Total People Of Colour ROBBINS White Total People Of Colour

3.

0-1 Total

0-1 %

0-5 Total

0-5 %

940 3628

20.6 79.4

123269 63873

65.9 34.1

State % Ohio 87.1 12.9

USA %

145 173

45.6 54.4

4898 937

83.9 16.1

Arizona 71.7 28.3

75.6 24.4

1545 7772

16.6 83.4

196826 169481

53.7 46.3

Illinois 74.8 25.2

75.6 24.4

75.6 24.4

Competing Conceptions of Justice

The environmental justice movement has been very successful in identifying and bringing to public awareness the problems of environmental injustice such as disproportionate environmental health risks and their cumulative impacts. However, a clearly defined normative standard of justice for environmental justice has not yet been articulated. Similarly, despite the frequent use of terms such as justice, equity and injustice in environmental justice discourse, there has been little theoretical discussion of what is meant by such terms (Foreman, 1998, Liu, 2001; Opotow and Clayton, 1994). For example, does environmental justice mean strict distributional equity in environmental conditions and standards? If so, what problems might occur with such an approach? If

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environmental justice is not strict equity, then what are the other methods of ensuring justice in environmental decision-making? Furthermore, this lack of inquiry into conceptions of justice and equity has serious implications for the effective articulation of environmental injustice claims and the implementation of policy initiatives and other efforts seeking to address environmental injustices. As will be shown below in examples from the Title VI complaint materials, key stakeholders (community, government and industry) hold conflicting conceptions of environmental justice that derive from competing principles of social justice. In addition, there is a similar conflict within existing environmental justice policy initiatives at the federal and state levels. Following the review of the material from the Title VI complaints, an overview will be provided of social justice theories with some considerations of how the application of these theories can advance environmental justice policy initiatives. In considering the connections between environmental justice concerns and the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), USEPA offers the following definition of environmental justice: The fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people regardless of race, color, national origin, or income with respect to the development, implementation, and enforcement of environmental laws, regulations, and policies. Fair treatment means that no group of people, including racial, ethnic, or socioeconomic group should bear a disproportionate share of the negative environmental consequences resulting from industrial, municipal, and commercial operations or the execution of federal, state, local, and tribal programs and policies (USEPA, 1997). In an effort to establish an environmental justice policy framework, USEPA presented the Interim Guidance in 1998. To support this policy framework, USEPA used Title VI of the USA Civil Rights Act of 1964 which states “ No person in the United States shall, on the ground of race, color, or national origin, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any program or activity receiving federal financial assistance. 4 These federal initiatives clearly demonstrate a rights-based notion of social justice. Fairness, impartiality, equity, and the right to participation in environmental decision making processes are the cornerstones of these policy initiatives. Despite the broad anti-

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discriminatory language in USEPA’s environmental justice definition and Title VI regulations, the agency avoided enforcing Title VI statutes against state or local recipient agencies from the early 1970s until the early 1990s. Expressing a strong utilitarian perspective, the agency argued that terminating funding to a discriminating recipient under Title VI would undermine its primary goal of providing financial assistance to state and local agencies to reduce pollution. USEPA maintained this approach even though other federal agencies enforced Title VI (Colopy, 1994; Fisher, 1995; Willoh and Collins, 1996). Even with the introduction of the Interim Guidance in 1998, USEPA maintained that even though facially-neutral policies or practices that result in discriminatory effects violate Title VI regulations, such activities can be permitted if they are justified and there are no less discriminatory alternatives (USEPA, 1998, 3). 5 In addition to receiving more than 100 environmental justice complaints over the past decade, USEPA has also received sharp criticism for developing an ambiguous and problematic policy. Criticism has come from both proponents, who believe the policy is too narrow, and opponents of environment justice, who believe the policy is too broad, (USEPA, 1999, 4-5). In analysing the data from the three Title VI complaints identified for this study, it is clear that competing conceptions of justice are directly related to this criticism. For example, some common understandings of environmental justice on the part of community members include a wide range of factors such as fairness or the equal right to environmental quality, environmental protection and access to resources. The notion of equitable environmental quality was expressed by one community member in Ohio who filed a Title VI complaint on behalf of his neighbourhood organization. Fairness. In other words, equitable distribution of the good and bad. If there are good things coming out of these industries, share it with everybody, the whole community. If there are bad things, if these things are really necessary for the good of the community relative to jobs, let everybody share the emissions equitably rather than, you know, I’m going to put it just in this area and these people are the ones we are asking to give up any potential…, suffer any consequences of these… rather than sharing it with other areas too. [community source 6 (PD 8: 1174-1185 7 )] A long-time opponent of the Robbins incinerator highlighted the need for equal environmental protection. “Equity for people of color, being entitled to the same environmental protection and the same access to

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opportunity that everyone else has” [community source (PD 1: 10561060)]. A third community source emphasized the importance of equal access to opportunities and resources. “Simply put, environmental justice means insuring that poor communities have the same resources and opportunities that wealthy communities have always had” [community source (PD 238: 4245)]. Fairness, as a common assumption on the part of community activists, has also been by identified by several other environmental justice researchers and writers (Capek, 1993; Davy, 1996; Gibbs, 1982; Levine, 1982). State environmental permitting agencies, however, primarily understand environmental justice in terms of procedural equity. An agency can only consider issues from the perspective of the procedural mandates (environmental health standards, emissions criteria, public notice etc.) that it has been given. If these procedures are met, the agency cannot deny a permit because of other concerns such as cumulative or disproportionate impacts. For example, the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency responded in the following way to public concerns related to the waste-toenergy incinerator in Robbins: The Illinois EPA strives to prevent adverse human health or environmental effects of activities governed by the Environmental Protection Act from being disproportionately imposed on minority and low-income populations. Within context of existing law, the Illinois EPA lacks authority to reject (the) permit application unless issuance of the permit would result in a violation of the Environmental Protection Act or a Board regulation. [Government source (PD 185: 6493)] This passage highlights the conflicting nature of state agency approaches to environmental justice. While stressing the goal of preventing disparate impacts, the agency notes that it lacks the authority to do anything about these problems if they fall outside existing regulatory standards. Most industry or business stakeholders understand environmental justice from the perspective of the market. The occurrence of areas of disparate environmental impact is not due to a lack of equity or procedural justice, but rather to a market rationality in which industry seeks access to infrastructure, resources, labour and land allowing it to maximize profits. If such areas are predominantly communities of colour or low-income, it is

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because residents have also sought out access to things such as cheap housing and employment. This view is articulated in the following two quotations. The first quote is from comments made by the Arizona Chamber of Commerce on the Interim Guidance, and the second is from the Environmental Justice Report of the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality. As stated earlier, the Chamber strongly believes that the root cause of ‘disparate impact’ and claims of ‘environmental racism’ are economic, not sociological. Accordingly, the aims of the environmental justice movement will be met best by encouraging, rather than discouraging, safe and environmentally sound economic development in communities with large minority and/or low-income populations. (Industry source [PD 74: 318-327]) First, many employees of these firms are people of color. These individuals have lived in close proximity to industrial hubs for many years. Low wages, transportation, as well as individual custom have kept them in these areas. [Government source (PD 17: 26-30)] It is clear that there are multiple as well as competing conceptions of justice operative within environmental justice discourse. Community stakeholders focus on group equity. They want to ensure that their communities do not bear an unfair burden of environmental problems. Government stakeholders focus on other issues. There is a concern for individual equity as articulated in the Title VI language from the Interim Guidance. However, the USEPA definition of environmental justice focuses on group or community equity and to date this focus has been overridden by a broader social agenda that places greater importance on the work of state regulatory agencies. This is demonstrated by the fact that to date USEPA has not ruled in favour of any of the communities that have filed Title VI environmental justice complaints. Finally, industry and business groups understand environmental justice in terms of market forces and question any policy initiatives that seek to address environmental injustices. Further examination of these multiple conceptions is critical to resolving environmental injustice because as Rasinski, Smith, and Zuckerbraun (1994) note, public conflicts over environmental issues often results from differing conceptions of how best to achieve social justice.

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4.


Theories of Justice and Environmental Justice

Several scholars (Davy, 1996; Liu, 2001; Perhac, 1999; Wenz, 2001) note that there are three primary theories of social justice that apply to environmental justice – contractarianism, utilitarianism and libertarianism. The work of John Rawls, particularly his theories of justice and social ethics as presented in his book A Theory of Justice (1971) provides the clearest contemporary exposition of contractarianism. Rawls builds a theory based on equal liberty and equal opportunity so that “each person possesses an inviolability founded on justice that even the welfare of society as a whole cannot override” (1971, 3). Rawls offers two principles of justice within his model of the social contract. The first principle is that “each person is to have an equal right to the most extensive basic liberty compatible with a similar liberty for others.” The second principle (Rawls terms this the “difference principle”) is that “social and economic inequalities are to be arranged so that they are both (a) reasonably expected to be to everyone's advantage, and (b) attached to positions and offices open to all” (Rawls, 1971, 60). Utilitarian justice assumes that social arrangements have to provide for the greatest happiness for the greatest number. The goal is to achieve the greatest possible balance of benefits over harms for society as a whole (Liu, 2001). Libertarian justice assumes that social arrangements have to provide for unrestrained interactions between free individuals (Davy, 1996). Libertarianism emphasizes freedom of individuals. People should be able to do whatever they want in the absence of force or fraud, as long as they respect the equal right of others to do the same (Liu, 2001; Wenz, 1988). Davy (1996) summarizes the three concepts as follows: x x x

Contractarianism – “Justice is what is beneficial to the poor, or: Minimize pain!” Utilitarianism – “Justice is what is beneficial to the most, or: Maximize happiness!” Libertarianism – “Justice is what is beneficial to the strong, or: Maximize liberty!”

Reviewing the material from the three cases, community groups generally espouse a contractarian view of social justice when seeking to address environmental injustice. Demands for fairness and equity mirror Rawls’ contractarian view that each person in society deserves an equal right to basic liberties. Community groups also voice opposition to the social and economic inequalities created by environmental injustice. As

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much of the research suggests, communities of colour and low-income experience disproportionate exposure to environmental hazards and generally do not directly benefit from the industrial or waste management activities that they oppose. Government stakeholders primarily follow a utilitarian perspective. In general, state agencies pursue procedural justice with the overall objective of benefiting the broader public good. As noted in the quotes above, government stakeholders often have no authority to entertain a complaint or community concern that falls outside procedures, rules and regulations. Over time, this process leaves community groups feeling that they have been abandoned by government agencies that fail to address broader community concerns about health and the environment. Business or industry groups most closely reflect a libertarian perspective and chafe at command and control strategies. In general, industry stakeholders believe that the market must be allowed to take its course and that justice is best determined through the market. Improving environmental conditions of high-risk populations will require a new conception or definition of justice. Justice cannot be solely left to the market, nor can it be relegated to environmental rules and regulations. There is a fundamental struggle between three different ethical perspectives, and it must be dealt with in order to establish the kind of change that will provide long-term protection to high-risk communities. 5.

Conclusion

What then is the best way to resolve these competing notions of environmental justice in order to promote effective policy? Davy (1996) notes that it is often assumed that injustice can be remedied by dispensing justice, but is there a form of justice that can (or should) satisfy all stakeholders? Furthermore, given the reality of the multiple conceptions of environmental justice it is inevitable that dispensing one form of justice would only enrage the stakeholders that hold a competing conception of justice (Davy, 1996). It is interesting to note that in addition to there being a uniform opinion of the primary theories of social justice that can be applied to environmental justice there is also uniformity in rejecting these theories for being unable to address environmental injustice adequately (Davy, 1996; Perhac, 1999; Wenz, 2001). None of theories can adequately serve as a unified framework to deal with environmental justice issues (Liu, 2002, 43). Some have suggested that a way to resolve environmental injustice is to shift away from a particular normative paradigm such as contractarianism, utilitarianism or libertarianism and instead focus on the

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issue of risk (Foreman, 1998; Lester, Allen and Hill, 2001; Perhac, 1999). Lester, Allen and Hill (2001) claim that with a risk-based framework, siting decisions and allocations of clean-up funds would be driven by the threat of health risks posed by existing environmental hazards (2001, 184). However risk-based decision making is not a panacea for assessing environmental injustice. There are many questions about the inherent assumptions of risk assessment and there are limits to what can be known about long-term or cumulative impacts (Andrews, 2000; Ringquist, 2000). Today’s flawless solution can quickly become tomorrow’s asbestos or Warren County catastrophe. In addition, there are enormous power differentials between various stakeholders in environmental disputes that could unfairly influence a risk assessment process (Callewaert, 2000; West, 1982; West, 1994). A community organization would rarely have access to the resources and political influence that a government agency or corporation might have. Instead of seeking an absolute standard of justice or decision making I contend that the best strategy for addressing environmental injustice is to broaden opportunities for stakeholder input and dialogue. More efforts are needed to expand opportunities for democratic decision making so that all parties involved are informed and can present their ideas for just solutions. This is not a simple call for more participatory democracy or procedural justice. In order to address environmental injustices effectively particular emphasis needs to be placed on empowering communities so that their voice can be heard clearly. Such principles are most clearly outlined in Iris Young’s (1990) Justice and the Politics of Difference. In an analysis of the literature of what people think are fair procedures, Tyler (2000, 121) notes that there are four primary elements that contribute to judgements about fairness: “opportunities for participation (voice), the neutrality of the forum, the trustworthiness of the authorities, and the degree to which people receive treatment with dignity and respect.” In general, theorists conclude that the vital aspect of procedural justice judgements lies in the degree to which decision making procedures allow for participation and the statement of each party’s viewpoints, (Ebreo and Linn, 1996). Several of the recommendations from the Title VI Interim Guidance) Federal Advisory Committee report specifically address this call for greater stakeholder participation in decision making. For example, the committee, which included community, industry, and government representatives unanimously, agreed that communities affected by environmental justice issues should not be treated by USEPA or other

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regulatory agencies merely as another stakeholder group. Given that communities face greater risks and negative impacts from the outcomes of the decision making processes, their views and concerns should be given more status and recognition than other stakeholders. In addition, standards must be set to make decision making processes more accessible to community members (USEPA, 1999). The following developments could be expected for the three environmental justice stakeholder groups – community groups, state permitting agencies and industry if such policy strategies were implemented. First, the concerns of communities affected by environmental injustices would be given greater consideration and communities would have a greater chance to experience the fairness that is often articulated in their demands. In addition, they would be given a greater role in decision making processes that would take into account the specific details of a particular context. Second, state permitting agencies would be able to broaden the scope of procedural justice beyond the current limited focus of mandates and regulations. Finally, industry would not be excluded from the policy process, but its objectives would not supplant the desires of groups directly affected by environmental permitting decisions. Such principles would probably be most successfully implemented at the state and local levels where more opportunities exist for public participation. Agencies currently provide public notices and hearings related to permitting decisions, yet many communities still fail to receive adequate notice of such events, or residents may be limited in their ability to participate because of language, transportation, or scheduling difficulties. It is likely that most human societies will never be able to distribute environmental harms and benefits in a truly equitable manner. Expanded opportunities for stakeholder input and dialogue are important, but as Andrews (2000) suggests focus should also be placed on a broader understanding of the interactions between human societies and their environments. That discussion will yield more meaningful, long-term results than limited solutions such as risk assessment or policy mechanisms. Ultimately, we need to shift away from the technologies and lifestyles that generate such problems as hazardous waste and seek strategies that promote healthier environments, more democratic societies and sustainable development.

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Notes 1

However it should be noted that many of the 17 Principles of Environmental Justice were developed at the First National People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit (October 27, 1991) 2 See http://www.epa.gov/ocrpage1/docs/t6csmay2002.pdf. 3 Source: 1990 Census. People of Color figures represent total population figures minus the White, non Hispanic figures. The Hispanic category is defined by the U.S Census Bureau as an ethnic category, not as a race. Hispanic may include counts from any of the Census race categories including White. 1990 census data are presented as these were the data available when the complaints were filed. Also, USEPA’s Environmental Justice Query Mapper (http://www.epa.gov/compliance/whereyoulive. html) has not yet incorporated 2000 census data. 4 42 USA Code 2000d to 2000d-7. 5 The Interim Guidance does not provide an example of a policy or practice that would be justified. However, a Title VI Advisory Committee considered this issue at length. Several members of the committee put forth the view that the overall social good contributed by a facility should serve as justification for its disproportionate adverse effects. The committee offered examples of a permit covering a facility that is necessary to national defence or a permit renewal application for an existing sewage treatment plant. In the second example, the social good of avoiding waterborne disease could not be satisfied by facilities at a greater distance from the community of concern and the disparate impact posed by the facility would therefore be justified. Other members of the committee opposed the idea of using either economic benefits or the broader public good to justify discrimination in any context arguing that the health of a community comprised of a protected class should never be sacrificed to secure more attenuated benefits for society at large. USEPA, (1999) Report of the Title VI Implementation Advisory Committee: Next Steps for EPA, State, an Local Environmental Justice Programs, EPA 100-4-99-004 ed. Washington, DC: The National Advisory Council for Environmental Protection and Technology. 92. 6 Following the confidentiality protocols established for this research project, participant names and will not be connected with quotes. Instead, all quotes will be referenced by the stakeholder group to which the participant or material has primary affiliation (community source, government source, or industry source). All interview participants signed consent forms agreeing to this and other confidentiality protocols.

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7

(PD 8: 1174-1185) is the reference for the research document from which this quote is taken. PD refers to primary document, thus PD 8 denotes primary document number 8 and 1174-1185 refers to the specific line numbers of primary document 8 that are associated with this quote.

References Andrews, R. N. (2000),’Risk-based decision making’, in: N. Vig and M. E. Kraft (eds.) Environmental policy in the 1990s. Washington, DC: Congressional Quarterly Press, 210-231. Callewaert, J. (2000), ‘Understanding the multiple conceptions of environmental justice: a qualitative analysis of stakeholder perceptions and values regarding Title VI environmental justice complaints’, [Dissertation]. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan. Capek, S. (1993), ‘The environmental justice frame: a conceptual discussion and application’, Social problems. 40: 5-24. Colopy, J. H. (1994), ‘The road less traveled: pursuing environmental justice through Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964’, Stanford environmental law journal. 13: 126-89. Corporate Watch (1999), The corporate backlash against environmental justice. http://www.corpwatch.org/trac/ gallery/ej/ejflyer.html. (accessed January 15, 2000). Davy, B. (1996), ‘Fairness as compassion: towards a less unfair facility siting policy’, Risk: issues in health, safety and environment, 7: 99-119. Ebreo, A. and N. Linn (1996), ‘The impact of procedural justice on opinions of public policy: solid waste management as an example’, Journal of applied psychology. 26: 1259-1287. Edwards, R. (1997), ‘Chemicals had ingredients for volatile reaction’, The Columbus Dispatch (September 11) B4. Fisher, M. (1995), ‘Environmental racism claims brought under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act’, Environmental law, 25: 285-312.

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Foreman, C. H. (1998), The promise and peril of environmental justice. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press. Gaylord, C. E. and E. Bell (2001), ‘Environmental justice: a national priority’, in: L. Westra and B. E. Lawson (eds.) Faces of environmental racism: confronting issues of global justice. London: Rowman and Littlefield, 29-39. Gerrard, M. B. (1999), The law and environmental justice: theories and procedures to address disproportionate risk. Chicago, IL: American Bar Association. Gibbs, L. (1982), Love canal, my story. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. Goldman, B. (1994), Not just prosperity: achieving sustainability with the Environmental Justice Corporate Conservation Council, Synergy '94 Conference. Washington, DC: National Wildlife Federation. Gottlieb, R. (1993), Forcing the spring: the transformation of the American environmental movement. Washington, DC: Island Press. Hargrove, E. (2001), ‘Foreword’, in: L. Westra and B. E. Lawson (eds.) Faces of environmental racism: confronting issues of global justice. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield. ix-xii. Hartley, T. (1995), ‘Environmental justice: an environmental civil rights value acceptable to all world views’, Environmental ethics. 17: 277-289. Jeter, J. (1998), ‘Poor town that sought incinerator finds more problems, few benefits; environmentalists, state, neighbors foil cash-for-trash plan’, The Washington Post (April 11) A3. Lester, J.P. D. W. Allen, and K. Hill (2001), Environmental injustice in the United States: myths and realities. Boulder, CA: Westview Press. Levine, A. (1982), Love canal: science, people and politics. Lexington, KY: Heath. Liu, F. (2001), Environmental justice analysis: theories, methods and practice. Boca Raton, FL: Lewis Publishers.

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Mank, B. (1999), ‘Title VI’, in: M. B. Gerrard (ed.) The law and environmental justice: theories and procedures to address disproportionate risk. Chicago, IL: American Bar Association. 23-68. Melosi, M. V. (1995), ‘Equity, eco-racism and environmental history’, Environmental history review, 19: 1-16. Mohai, P. and B. Bryant (1992), ‘Environmental racism: reviewing the evidence’, in: B. Bryant and P. Mohai (eds.) Race and the incidence of environmental hazards: a time for discourse. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. 163-176. Newton, D. E. (1996), Environmental justice: a reference handbook. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO. Ohio EPA. (1997), Georgia pacific resins plant site history. (unpublished document). Opotow, S. and S. Clayton (1994), ‘Green justice: conceptions of fairness and the natural world’, Journal of social issues, 50: 1-11. Perhac, R. M. (1999), ‘Environmental justice: disproportionality’, Environmental ethics, 21: 81-92.

the

issue

of

Platt, H. (2000), ‘Jane Adams and the ward boss revisited: class, politics, and public health in Chicago, 1890-1930’, Environmental history, 4: 94222. Rasinski, K. A., T. Smith, and S. Zuckerbraun (1994), ‘Fairness motivations and tradeoffs underlying public support for government environmental spending in nine nations’, Journal of social issues, 50: 179197. Rawls, J. (1971), A theory of justice. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. Ringquist, E. J. (2000), ‘Environmental justice: normative concerns and empirical evidence’, in: N. Vig and M. E. Kraft (eds.) Environmental policy in the 1990s. Washington, DC: Congressional Quarterly Press. 232256.

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Spencer, C. (2001), ‘Georgia-Pacific agrees to $22 million settlement in 1997 explosion’, The Associated Press. http://www.ohiocitizen.org/ campaigns/prevention/gp_agrees.htm [accessed February 1, 2002). Stern, P. C. and T. Dietz (1994), ‘The value basis of environmental concern’, The journal of social issues. 50: 65-84. Taylor, D. (2000), ‘The rise of the environmental justice paradigm’, American behavioral scientist. 42: 508-80. Tyler, T. R. (2000), ‘Social justice: outcome and procedure’, International union of psychological science. 35: 117-125. USEPA (1997), Interim final guidance for incorporating environmental justice concerns in EPA's NEPA compliance analyses. Washington, DC: USA Environmental Protection Agency. USEPA (1998), Interim guidance for investigating Title VI administrative complaints challenging permits. Washington, DC: USA Environmental Protection Agency. USEPA (1999), Report of the Title VI implementation advisory committee: next steps for EPA, state, and local environmental justice programs. EPA 100-4-99-004 ed. Washington, DC: The National Advisory Council for Environmental Protection and Technology. Wenz, P. (1988), Environmental justice. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. Wenz, P. (2001), ‘Just garbage’, in: L. Westra and B. E. Lawson (eds.) Faces of environmental racism: confronting issues of global justice. London: Rowman and Littlefield. 57-71. West, P. C. (1982), Natural resources bureaucracy and rural poverty: a study in the political sociology of natural resources. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan, School of Natural Resources, Natural Resources Sociology Lab. West, P. C (1994), ‘Natural resources and the persistence of rural poverty in America: a Weberian perspective on the role of power, domination and natural resource bureaucracy’, Society and natural resources, 5: 415-27.

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Willoh, D. and T. Collins (1996), ‘Environmental justice and TSD siting policies: Title VI is the plaintiffs’' newest and best weapon, but will it succeed in Missouri’, Missouri environmental law and policy review, 3: 285-334. Young, I. M. (1990), Justice and the politics of difference. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Yozwiak, S. (1996), ‘Oil firm fined $5.3 million over waste sent to A Arizona’, The Arizona Republic (December 11) A1.


A Conceptual Framework for Environmental Justice based on Shared but Differentiated Responsibilities Asghar Ali

1.

Introduction

Justice is an ever-present societal issue. It is often seen as the foremost desirable social virtue. The universal presence of calls for justice is evidence that there are unresolved issues at different levels of human interaction and social development. There are conflicts and disagreements, which tell us that society and its institutions have to keep grappling with matters that provide the bases and the reasons for complaints and cries for justice. These are issues, grievances that are often voiced by peoples and communities to whom injustices - as understood by them but not necessarily endorsed by others - have been done. Justice is therefore, a historically present phenomenon that in turn signifies the societal presence of harm, exploitation and oppression on the one hand and a quest to rectify these failings on the other. When we talk of justice, it is almost always about justice among human beings. Justice, as we know it, is typically a human affair, involving human-human interactions and relationships. As such, in a broad and general sense, it is understood as a social concept. It is a claim put forward by some members of society about or against the actions, or intentions, of others. A sense of (in)justice arises out of various milieus, for example in modern societies, a situation of competing, often rightsbased claims. Every era’s concerns have had influence on, or more importantly have been influenced by, the way justice has been understood, demanded and achieved. The concept of justice, is material and now also cognitive and epistemic and the subject of intense debates and disagreements in recent decades, because of its very nature and because of the way it is being defined and redefined in the context of complex, diverse contemporary societies. As the nature of risks and harms changes with the transformations in science and technology and social and economic polarizations within and across societies influencing a new understanding and redefinition of problems, the calls for justice are also being framed in new ways. Environmental justice is one such area where the focus is now on the distribution of environmental quality; a focus on harms caused and aggravated by anthropogenic environmental bads and well-being protected

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A Conceptual Framework for Environmental Justice

and enhanced by environmental goods. Here, justice is demanded by environmental victims. Environmental victims are “those who are harmed by natural processes, by anthropogenic processes mediated by the natural environment, and by restrictions in access to the environment” (Penz, 1998, 42). Justice in its narrower, distributive sense is, therefore, about the distribution or maldistribution of, or access to environmental quality just like any other commodity - among different groups who question and protest against these distributions, because they have real consequences on the quality of their lives and their environments. Justice as concerned with the interaction and relationship of human beings with each other, as a social concept, is still, correctly, the primary focus of attention and study for many theorists and activists. But now there is a realization of another relational aspect to the struggles for justice; that of our relationship as species - as human beings - to the rest of the natural world. Low and Gleeson (1998) term the first as “environmental justice” and the latter as “ecological justice” but are quick to point out that “They are really two aspects of the same relationship” (2). In this chapter, following this distinction, which also stresses the significant interrelated and interdependent nature of the two aspects of justice, I will mainly focus on environmental justice; justice concerned with human-human relationships. I accept that stressing this kind of dichotomy too much and too far can be misleading and may even be unnecessary. This is because eventually all environmental and ecological problems have their roots in social problems as also suggested by a social ecology that rejects dualistic thinking whereby nature and society are often seen as antagonistic towards each other. Thus, “the divisions between society and nature have their deepest roots in divisions within the social realm, namely deep-seated conflicts between human and human that are often obscured by our broad use of the word ’humanity’” (Bookchin, 1990, 32). The injuries done to the nonhuman world have a close and connected relationship to the injustices in the human world. A socioecological sensibility developing out of such understanding and based on a dialectical view of self, history, nature and society that enriches and broadens thought and action does not see aspects of a phenomenon exclusively and in isolation from other phenomenon. Given the scope and limitations of this chapter, I will attempt to focus on environmental justice within a broader framework of environmental sustainability and in doing so hope that the connections between the two forms of justice (human-human and human-nonhuman) also become visible to a certain extent. I will argue for a broader conception of environmental justice based on the notion of shared but

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differentiated responsibility which is sensitive to particularities as well as supportive of a new, truly democratic universalism which will have to be debated and established dialogically through fair, active and meaningful participation of different actors and stakeholders in their different and diverse cultures, traditions or worldviews. 2.

Justice and Sustainable Development

In a now clichéd and much-quoted paragraph, Lele says that sustainable development …. is a “metafix” that will unite everybody from the profitminded industrialist and risk minimising subsistence farmer to the equity seeking social worker, the pollution-concerned or wildlife-loving First Worlder, the growth-maximising policy maker, the goal-oriented bureaucrat, and therefore, the vote-counting politician (Lele, 1991, 613). If one follows Lele, then it becomes evident from such a view of sustainable development that it is inherently a political and “contested concept” (O’Riordan, 1993; Jacobs, 1999). This is, primarily, because the stakes around which the concept revolves, and is often constructed, are very high. Ever since the term was elevated by events such as the publication of the Brundtland Report (WCED) in 1987 and the Earth Summit of 1992 in Rio de Janeiro, this catch phrase has become one of the most talked about ideas of contemporary times. For example, among contemporary issues of universal importance the concept of a sustainable society is second only to the idea of an information society as the most prominent image of the future (McKenzie-Mohr and Marien, 1994 cited in Olson, 1995, 19). The rise of environmentalism and many green movements (since the 1960s) around the world but especially in the developed North, have all, to one degree or another, rallied around different forms and varieties of this concept. The politics of sustainable development in a contested environment is very complex and at the end of the day is much in need of critical, political and ethical considerations. Most often the accounts and reviews of sustainable development have been narratives that have been “bought at the cost of a degree of analytical weakness” (Dobson, 1998, 8). In such analyses, it is often the multiplicity of the meanings of sustainable development which are hinted at but the narrow generalizations leave out some very specific questions unanswered and the linkages, for example, between issues like justice, equity and environmental protection remain

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sketchy if not ignored. Because the term is so open and easily co-opted by different interests, confusions prevail and issues central to the discourse get glossed over. It is argued here that because sustainable development (SD), first and foremost, embodies a human dimension, it needs to be understood in a broader sense. In fact, its openness to interpretation and vagueness may well be its strength. The vagueness so characteristic of sustainable development, despite a steady proliferation of definitions, allows for dialogue and participation in discussing socio-environmental issues and herein lies its political strength and also its analytical weakness (Cohen et al.,. 1998). The human dimension means taking into account worldviews, perceptions, rights and choices and their accompanying responsibilities for environmental change and impacts at different scales and by different actors involved. How some perceptions and choices become dominant over others and acquire legitimacy, often through systematic institutionalisation, is a more specific and critical issue that needs to be understood. Human choice could be viewed at different levels; individual, communal, societal, national and global. These are interrelated and all have consequences, not only for the present but also for the future of life on this planet. But what is now clear is that there are some core ideas that feature in most, if not all, explications of sustainability, however tinged these may be with different ideological hues. Some of these core issues stem from the seminal document, the WCED report commonly referred to a the Bruntland Report, which is very much responsible for the popularisation of the term. Among other things, the Brundtland Report’s affirmation that “inequality is the planet’s main ’environmental’ problem” (WCED, 1987, 6) has given rise to different interpretations and understandings of sustainable development some of which often correctly connect issues of social justice with unsustainable development. The Report’s observations, for example, that. “….poverty itself pollutes the environment, creating environmental stress in a different way. Those who are poor and hungry will often destroy their immediate environment in order to survive” (28) and that “It is futile to attempt to deal with environmental problems without a broader perspective that encompasses the factors underlying world poverty and international inequality” (3) is controversial and can even be seen as superficially concerned with symptoms rather than causes but has, nevertheless, opened up a whole discussion about social justice and environmental sustainability as intrinsically related issues 1 . How these are understood, articulated and what definitions and explanations are struggling to prevail

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and exclude and marginalize others are matters of much contemporary debate. 3.

Sustainability and Distribution

Within paradigms of sustainability an important implied question, is what is to be distributed if justice is to be done? This line of reasoning often informs arguments in the sustainability-social justice nexus. At the Earth Summit held in Rio, Brazil in 1992, and following that at almost all other major international events related to development and environment for example, the Cairo Conference, Habitat II, the Beijing Conference on Women, the question of fairness and justice remained a central issue for many of the voices especially those of the South, although these are articulated in different vocabularies of justice. There and elsewhere, for the poor and marginalized, distribution is as much about resources, as about fair access to these resources. Issues of trade, rules of trade, investment, development credits, loans and aid etc. as incorporated in the international governance regime consisting of institutions like the World Trade Organization (WTO), International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) are often found to be unjust and discriminatory by these dissenting voices. Moreover, the contemporary globalised tendency of production systems, that concentrate not only the benefits of modernised development but also its harms, is often the core target of many of these criticisms. It is in this area, particularly in the claims about the unfair or potentially unfair, disproportionate spreading and sharing of harms or risks that distributional demands seem to have taken a new turn within the environmentalist discourse of justice. This new form of understanding of maldistribution is somewhat different from the old ones whereby the focus was mainly on access to resources, wealth etc. This is not to say that they are not connected. Of course, the distribution of wealth and power has got a lot to do in determining the distribution of social and environmental goods and harms (Boyce, 1994). But what is notable is that with a change in the nature of injustices, there seems to have been a parallel shift, or rather a broadening, of the conception and language of distributive justice. In a general sense, it can be said that, “on any account of sustainability…something or other is supposed to be kept going, or at any rate not allowed to decline, over time” (Holland, 1994, 169). The problem seems to be that there are different understandings of this something or other and how it must be kept going or sustained. One idea suggests the sustainability of scarce natural capital that can be termed “critical natural capital”. Similar to earlier definitions of “critical natural capital” that

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Dobson (1998, 43) defines it as “….capital critical for the maintenance of human life” and that ‘”critical natural capital is radically indeterminate, of course, and it might refer us (in detail) to any number of features of the non-human world” (43, emphasis added) 2 . These features, according to Dobson are mostly understood and argued for in the industrialized world in terms of overarching “ecological processes” (Norton, 1992, 97), “biogeochemical cycles” (Pearce, 1993, 16), or “global life support systems” (Bowers, 1990, 8), ecological “glue” (Pearce, 1995, 52) and “ecosystem health” (all cited in Dobson 1998, 43-44). This kind of understanding of critical natural capital, meaning that it is the very scarce foundational base on which all life depends and on which all life activity is carried out, can indeed have very deep implications for any discussion of sustainability and social justice. The implication in such arguments is that this understanding of criticality is born out of the very scarcity and limited nature of that which is crucial for life, human or otherwise, and because of this, some form of preservation and/or conservation is imperative if humanity in particular, or life in general is to survive. A further complication in such an understanding of critical natural capital is whether it is always substitutable by other things or not. This is also at the heart of the, mostly economic, debates that have been going on recently among economists and philosophers of different schools of thought and ideological persuasions. The reference here is especially to the complementarity versus substitutability debate. This means that complementarity or substitutability of natural capital by human made capital. The arguments have mostly got involved around the concepts of weak and strong sustainability. Daly who champions strong sustainability and complementarity position has argued: “weak sustainability assumes that manmade and natural capital are basically substitutes….Strong sustainability assumes that manmade and natural capital are basically complements” (1995, 49) or “the basic relation of man-made and natural capital is one of complementarity, not substitutability” (Sagoff, 1995, 613). Elsewhere it is argued: “capital cannot ultimately substitute for resources…labour and capital complement the material resources that are transformed into a product” (Daly and Cobb, 1989, 409). On the other side of the debate is the substitutability school to which the weak, the very weak sustainability positions or the so called mainstream economists subscribe in one form or another with different degrees of affiliation. Sagoff claims that a typical argument belonging to such a position states:

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The standard model of economic growth assumes that human knowledge and ingenuity can always alleviate resource shortages so that natural capital sets no limit on economic growth (p. 613) and,…if there is a limiting factor in economic production, it is knowledge, and that as long as knowledge advances, the economy can expand (Sagoff, 1995, 610). Holland (1999) is critical of the economic natural capital approach to sustainability and suggests a physical stock approach. It is an inventory approach whereby informed judgements are made “to decide whether and in what sense there has been any depletion” (63). It is claimed that this approach will overcome the problems of measurement and economic valuation, often identified with the former approach and that “it is to lay stress on a different kind of valuation” (64). Norton (1999), in turn, identifies keystone natural resources, as a form of capital that is not interchangeable with other forms of capital and that are distinctive and defining features of a place and culture. These should be sustained because they are crucial for regional development and also because “their loss erodes the distinctiveness of the landscape and the diversity of available habitats in the region” (146). By critically problematising such types of analysis one can ask how and why nature or what constitutes nature and environment have become capitalized or become seen as stocks and assets. Nature as capital, stock, asset or resource are all one or another type of valuation based on and informed by different cultural frameworks or conceptions of self, nature, and the relationship of society with nature. Some valuations are more quantitative while others are qualitative and still others are mixtures of quantitative and qualitative approaches. Moreover, there are problems with measurements of nature especially as natural capital. In other words, why would it be safe to assume that there would be no over-exploitation of those parts of nature that are commercially viable and profitable in a now globalised capitalist economy that thrives on short term future-discounted exploitation with profit as its central axiom and which is hostile to all nonmarket understanding of these stocks upon which all life depends? The underlying commonality of all these approaches is the problematic notion of scarcity, something critical, something scarce, a keystone resource that needs to be counted/inventoried, measured, sustained and passed on, often as a rationale for intergenerational justice. It seems that the worry and concern is often about being responsible and doing justice to future generations. Compared to such necessary and partially understandable concerns for future generations there is rather a

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critical scarcity of similar resources (in the form of research studies, theorizing and intellectualising for example) that scrutinize and analyse issues of international justice or justice among present generations across societies and nations. The moral and economic concerns for future generations’ well being is relatively overemphasized and overtheorised, often at the cost of concerns for justice here and now, even in very narrow economic terms. Low and Gleeson argue this to be rather inconsistent: “It seems more than a little inconsistent to show moral concern for future generations when the worst environmental conditions imaginable are already present in places on this planet” (Low and Gleeson, 1998, 19). Now, given the high degree of concern for a critical natural capital conception of sustainability, and for future generations, how can, or should, these critically scarce resources be understood from a substantial justice perspective? How are they to be reconciled, after being accepted as valid arguments, with justice claims made by groups of living generations as opposed to the yet unborn who are yet to make justice claims upon us, or at least some of us? For example, Owen (1994) argues that “who decides what is critical and why…to designate natural assets as critical requires someone to judge what is so important that it should be preserved intact, whatever the weight of other considerations” (449 original emphasis). It is worth noting that claims to preserve and sustain some scarce or critical natural capital for the sake of future generations can also easily mutate into justifying calls for sustaining present inequalities and injustices; inequalities which are already so visibly marked and extreme that they place a fourth of humanity in absolute conditions of poverty. Since the very idea of scarcity is so radically indeterminate and therefore, challengeable, it can be argued that even if there is an objectively established criticality, then perhaps such criticality or access to it should be distributed, or distributing scarcity ought to become the absolute and even radical focus of discourses of environmental justice 3 . 4.

The Environmental Justice Movement

The claims about the linkages between poverty and environmental degradation not only shift the focus but also complicate issues of justice. Such claims are repeatedly made in the Brundtland Report (WCED, 1987), for example, that “poverty itself pollutes the environment, creating environmental stress in a different way. Those who are poor and hungry will often destroy their immediate environment in order to survive” (28) and that “It is futile to attempt to deal with environmental problems without a broader perspective that encompasses

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the factors underlying world poverty and international inequality” (3). Perhaps this is true in a superficial sense, but to what extent poverty (and only that) pollutes the environment and why, is an important question. This causality that is presented in the Brundtland Report and other similar documents also obscures other issues. Again, one can say that discourse is deeply implicated in institutionalizing poverty (Yapa, 1997), especially when such linear causations are presented. These linkages of issues have implications for people and communities and especially for those who hold the power of definition and implementation of these definitions through policies. They will empower some and disempower many others. A real concern is that justice should not only make such general claims about the poverty pollution relationship but also ask, who pollutes whose environment and why? These issues while themselves reflective of distinct understandings of environment and their social and political sources, have been influential in shaping the agendas of many sustainable development movements, with strong social justice character, around the world. In the USA the environmental justice movement can be seen as a social justice movement which is not exclusively concerned with conservation and preservation causes that otherwise make up the agendas of so many other influential Northern sustainability groups. The apparent absence of a nature conservation element in environmental justice movements is at the heart of the growing suspicion that the agendas of social justice and sustainability may not be the same (Dobson, 1998). The environmental justice movement asserts that social justice and environmental issues are both conceptually and politically inseparable (Grass, 1995). The cost of ignoring these linkages, no matter how much they are un- or underexplored, at local, national, regional and even global levels can only result in the aggravation of the situation, both environmentally and socially. The environmental justice movement in the USA is the outcome of the “struggle of low-class, often black communities against the incinerators and toxic waste dumps that, by accident and frequently by design, come to be sited near them (and away from affluent neighborhoods)” (Guha and Martinez-Alier, 1997, 19). The movement is often seen to be in contrast to the more well known environmentalism of middle class Americans who have shown less concern with the disproportionate burden of toxic wastes and risks on minority communities (Hofrichter, 1993; Low and Gleeson, 1998). Hofrichter (1993) has argued that these minority communities have been unfairly at the receiving end of “unregulated, often racist, activities of major corporations who target them for high technology industries, incinerators and waste” (2). Although the contexts and their historical development are different, the grassroots, activist nature of this movement

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has much in common with many similar movements for social justice in the developing world, whether prefixed by the term sustainable development or not. Environmental justice as a movement has mainly been a USA phenomenon. The term environmental racism is also used interchangeably with environmental justice and environmental equity. In the USA some have claimed that, “statistics show that race is a better indicator than income in determining the probability that a community is polluted” (Collins, 1993, 41). “Environmental racism” was a term coined by Benjamin Chavis, then head of the United Church of Christ’s Commission on Racial Justice (Mushak, 1993 cited in Cutter, 1995, 112). The Commission carried out a study, Toxic Wastes and Race in the United States that concluded that “race was consistently a more prominent factor in the location of commercial hazardous waste facilities than any other factor examined” (cited in Collins, 1993, 41). Environmental racism in this case is seen “as an extension of racism in household, land use, employment, and education policies and therefore as part of the larger web of institutionalized racism” (Collins, 1993, 41). Reverend Chavis who headed the Commission on the toxic waste study states: Environmental racism is racial discrimination in environmental policy-making and enforcement of regulations and laws, the deliberate targeting of communities of color for toxic waste facilities, the official sanctioning of the presence of life threatening poisons and pollutants in communities of color, and the history of excluding people of color from leadership of the environmental movement (quoted in Cutter, 1995, 112). Some other authors have argued for the term environmental justice because they see environmental racism as too restrictive a term and also because “environmental justice…moves beyond racism to include others (regardless of race or ethnicity) who are deprived of their environmental rights, such as women, children and the poor” (Cutter, 1995, 113). This is a contentious issue affecting methodology, funding for research studies etc. In a recent paper geographers Kobayashi and Peake (2000) have criticised academic definitional and methodological practices. These practices consist of strategies of writing in, emphasizing some categories, and of writing out, excluding others which the authors see as acts of discursive silence and that “this silence overwhelms, signalling the privilege of the majority” (397). In another context, but relevant to the

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issue under discussion, the writer Toni Morrison (1992) has called this kind of evasion and the elitist language that it gives rise to as “willed scholarly indifference” (14). Regarding the racist nature of most antienvironmental as well as environmental protection practices in the USA, the question of scale has also been raised, for example, as part of the methodological issues. Pulido (2000) has tackled the issue of scale and racism and citing Smith (1993) has argued that scales are socially produced and must not be thought of as a “methodological preference for the researcher” (Smith, 1993 in Pulido, 2000, 20). It is argued that “racism and its consequences do not necessarily cease at the edges of census tracts or city boundaries” (Pulido, 2000, 20). Indeed, racism and its consequences do not end at some particular spatial boundary but they are carried into other places, into all those places in which the racist self and its exclusive conceptual categories enter; the other places and their peoples upon which this self sets its knowledgeable, yet willfully ignorant gaze, and about which it talks or chooses not to talk. Racism, whether of the environmental variety or otherwise should, therefore, not be seen as just an abstract idea, nor should it be seen as too restrictive a term, or (often by implication) as an exclusive category but as reflection of differential exposures (Pulido, 2000); of different experiences of racism and therefore of injustice. Justice means that racism should not be conflated with other categories and thus made obscure and invisible but that it should be openly discussed with the full participation of all. It is worth stressing here that often in our efforts to use more inclusive categories, (as if anti racist protests are exclusive, unconnected and isolated claims and/or as if these protests are insensitive to other forms of oppression, to victimization and sufferings of other) to move beyond racism we risk leaving racism and all it does to many, behind; we leave it behind as unacknowledged, unthought and untalked about especially by those of us who have the privilege not to acknowledge, not to think and talk about it. Morrison (1992) has pointed out that “the world does not become raceless or will not become unracialized by assertion. The act of enforcing racelessness…is itself a racial act” (46). According to Bullard (1994) environmental justice “is a more politically charged term, one that connotes some remedial action to correct an injustice imposed on a specific group of people, mostly people of color in the USA” (quoted in Cutter, 1995, 112). Bullard (1994) goes on to suggest five principles of environmental justice to promote procedural, geographic, and social equity that have remarkable similarity with those proposals that are often put forward by the developing countries, for example, regarding potential disasters from toxic wastes or climate change and their effects on the vulnerable and the poor:


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1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

guaranteeing the right to environmental protection; preventing harm before it occurs; shifting the burden of proof of contamination to polluters not the residents; obviating proof of intent to discriminate; and redressing existing inequities (Bullard, 1994, 15)

In the case of USA, this movement clearly has a strong civil rights character. It has attempted to connect with or incorporate broader social justice vocabulary from outside the conventional conservation movements that often either ignore these issues in their quest for wilderness or pristine nature preservation or subsume and collapse all differential impacts and burdens in abstractions like human beings, homo sapiens or we. It may well be that in such instances the concern is with the macro level, a concern with what will happen to the planet and its life forms as a whole, but that need not come at the cost of these localized, concrete, micro level situations of struggles that are more visible definitions of the human condition; conditions of disproportionate and undeserved harm and injury, of deprivation and suffering which are equally, if not more, important and urgently in need of redress. Dowie (1995) makes a similar point: During the early years of the movement, in an understandable attempt to build the broadest possible constituency, environmentalists often described the issues as one that affected everyone equally. We all live in the same biosphere, said the gospel, breathing the same thin layer of air, eating food grown in the same soil. Our water is drawn from the same aquifers, and acid rain falls on the estates of the rich as forcefully as on the ghettos of the poor. On closer examination, however, massive inequities in environmental degradation and injustices in the policies used to correct them became evident. While created equal, all Americans were not, as things turned out, being poisoned equally (quoted in Dobson, 1998, 19). In any case, the macro and the micro are not separable. Claims and protests make clear “the environmental justice belief that the ‘environment’ is no more–and certainly no less–than a particular form of goods and bads that society must divide among its members” (Dobson, 1998, 20). There are similarities between the environmental justice movement in a country like the USA and other environmentally oriented

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protests and struggles in the developing world. The latter are collectively called the environmentalism of the poor. Some authors in comparing the two types of environmentalisms–those of the rich and the poor–have taken the view that the environmentalism of the rich is seen as a partial shift from a materialist to a post materialist or post industrial society and that the environmentalism of the poor is mostly concerned with nature/resource based conflicts (Guha and Martinez-Alier, 1997): Origins and political style notwithstanding, the two varieties of environmentalism perhaps differ most markedly in their ideologies. The environmentalism of the poor originates as a clash over productive resources: a third kind of class conflict, so to speak, but one with deep ecological implications. Red on the outside, but green on the inside…. In contrast, the wilderness movement in the North originates outside the production process. It is in this respect more of a single-issue movement, calling for a change in attitudes (towards the natural world) rather than a change in systems of social production or distribution (Guha and Martinez, 1997, 18). Distribution in these situations takes the form of ecological distribution that refers to “the social, spatial and temporal asymmetries or inequalities in the use by humans of environmental resources and services, i.e. in the depletion of natural resources (including the loss of biodiversity) and the burdens of pollution” (Guha and Martinez-Alier, 1997, 31). The ensuing discontent and conflicts often suggest a strong linkage between resource use and social and economic disparities. From such a perspective injustices are environmental therefore, first and foremost, equity and access issues implying a broader and better understanding of these historical and structural disparities as crucial pre-requisites for any ameliorative or mitigation measure that claims to be just, inclusive and non-coercive. For the environmental justice/racism movement’s message to have any real impact and meaning in its truly globalised sense, it has to show awareness of and solidarity with the big pictures of injustices and it will have to transcend the politics of place (Low and Gleeson, 1998). Without doing that, there is a real danger that it will become a net contributor to injustices beyond the borders of its particular community of justice. This already happens through the displacement of hazardous facilities to other less influential and less powerful communities both within and outside

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state borders. The movement is also a much needed correction to the worldview of the environmentalism of the rich. 5.

International Justice and the Universal/Particular Debate

Jamieson (1994) has suggested that: “perhaps the most important idea of global environmental justice views the environment as a commodity whose distribution should be governed by principles of justice” (203). But what does this global justice mean in the context of the dominant legal-positivist, framework, the realpolitik framework of international relations? We know that the neo-realist worldview remains the dominant normative framework within which international power politics is negotiated and reinforced (Baylis and Rengerr, 1992, 9). This perspective maintains that since there is no well-defined global community similar to the way people are defined by nation-states, there cannot be international justice. The underlying assumption is that politics should be seen separately from ethics and morality. It stresses order and survival (often seen as the morality of states) and not justice; national interests and security and not moral and ethical considerations. This perspective is has its roots in a Hobbesian and Machiavellian state-centric worldview with narrow and egotistical assumptions about human nature. The recent debate between liberal and communitarian theorists of justice is of particular interest in relation to international justice. Liberal theories have recently been accused of being too abstract, not grounded in social reality, not context sensitive and of avoiding the differences among cultural communities and societies, or worldviews. Their apparent attempt to look for a single principle or single set of principles of justice has in particular come under attack. Its so called communitarian critics have increasingly questioned the universalism of liberal theories of justice. Rawls’ (1973) impartiality and justice as fairness and liberal secularism’s apparent neutrality have come under critical scrutiny. Moreover, most liberal theorists are accused of advocating the secular wall of separation between say, religion and public affairs too staunchly at the cost of undermining cultural, religious diversity and democratic pluralism (Bader 1999). Bader (1999) suggests that liberal theorists should be more concerned with the priority for democracy rather than with the myths of neutrality and a hands-off approach to justice. Carens (1999) argues on similar lines and thinks that a better approach to issues of justice would be one of immersion rather than abstraction and neutral distance. The similarities of this view with some feminist perspectives like the ethics of care (Gilligan 1982) are striking. Immersion or inclusiveness is a feature

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of Iris Young’s (1990) conception of justice that is also very critical of the neutrality and impartiality thesis. Young’s argument can be seen as a standard critique of a strict impartiality position like that of Rawls: Rawls presents us with not so flashy a fiction, but the original position which he constructs as the point of view of impartiality is…utopian….The ideal of impartiality is an idealist fiction. It is impossible to adopt an unsituated moral point of view, and if a point of view is situated, then it cannot be universal, it cannot stand apart from and understand all points of view (Young, 1990, 104). But a more radical critique of the liberal-Rawlsian way of theorizing about justice has been offered by Charles Mills (1997) in his brief but compelling manifesto like book The Racial Contract. Mills has put forward a devastating indictment of liberal political/moral theory and has charged it and its theorists especially from Kant onwards with having a historical racial bias, a prejudice not as an aberration but as a coherent system of thought and one working with an implicit racial contract conveniently masked as an ideal social contract and often speaking the language of ideal speech situation. In this small book Mills has argued that the racial contract is based on an implicit political system of racism that privileges, and has done so for quite some time, dominant white theorizing: “The Racial Contract is political, moral, and epistemological; the Racial Contract is real, and economically, in determining who gets what, the Racial Contract is an exploitation contract” (9). In the process of demystifying this hegemonic abstract theorizing Mills argues: In the Kantian world of the raceless social contract, persons can exist in the abstract; in the non ideal world of the naturalized Racial Contract, persons are necessarily related to subpersons….White moral theory’s debates on justice in the state must…inevitably have somewhat farcical air, since they ignore the central injustices on which the state rests. (No wonder a hypothetical contractarianism that evades the actual circumstances of the polity’s founding is preferred!) (Mills, 1997, 39). What implications has this critique for mainstream moral and political philosophy? How will these criticisms now coming from different quarters, many of them right and long overdue, change the nature and course of this idealistic and abstract theorising; exclusive ways of seeing

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that hide themselves from real world issues; issues, the burdens of which are borne disproportionately by the invisible many? The effects, however minuscule, are beginning to surface and be seen in some new perspectives. For example, some communitarian perspectives seem to be attempting to bring back a substantial ethical outlook into conceptions of justice; a virtue based outlook on issues of justice. This is particularly visible in the work of Alasdair MacIntyre (1981) that argues for a virtue ethic. For MacIntyre cultural traditions, their vocabularies and narratives are indispensable and cannot be discarded if we want to conduct a meaningful discourse about justice and rationality. The dominant neo-realist worldview maintains that because there is no real reciprocity of power, there can be no obligations of the powerful towards the weak. Nielsen (1992) has argued that instead of such a reciprocity there is a need for moral reciprocity. The dominant view is realist in that it takes for granted, even justifies, contemporary power structures and power-relations often in an ahistorical framework. But history matters and historical contexts matter. They matter everywhere. Claims based on conceptions of histories matter. The realist position discounts all this and fails to see how the dialectic of power has developed through the ages and in that development process who and how some were systematically trampled on and disempowered through unjust practices and abusive exercise of power. Justice is not just about here and now but equally about there and then. Beitz (1979) while criticizing the passing concern shown by liberal theorists for international justice has argued that “in an interdependent world, confining principles of social justice to domestic societies has the effect of taxing the poor nations so that others may benefit from living in ‘just’ regimes” (150). In the context of migration and border controls in liberal/democratic societies Bader (1995) has termed this kind of attitude as collective welfare chauvinism. In recent years these critical challenges have been gaining partial acceptance, as is also evident in certain environmental treaties and agreements, but these have a long way to go to replace the entrenched worldviews that dominate the global politics of international relations. If such issues cut across national boundaries and there is a growing degree of interdependence, then with each interaction the complexity of issues is bound to grow and within each interaction there are normative issues involved that defy parochial and reductionist thinking. If it appears that the circumstances of justice are plural and complex then it would be rather futile to argue for a single principle to apply universally to all situations. But this complexity and diversity need

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not lead us to silence and surrender in the face of pervasive oppressions and injustices with global reach and effects. Regarding the now much dissected incompatibility thesis of universal abstraction and particular sensitivity to context, O’Neill (1992) using the example of poor women in impoverished societies, – whom she identifies as the impoverished providers – has cogently and convincingly suggested that this dichotomy is unnecessary and can be avoided. She distinguishes between idealization and abstraction and argues that abstraction is possible, and even necessary for an international theory of justice, without idealization: “Abstract principles can guide context-sensitive judgment without lapsing into relativism” (O’Neill, 1992, 53). She argues: Idealizations may privilege certain sorts of human agent and life and certain sorts of society by covertly presenting (enhanced versions of) their specific characteristics as true of all human action and life. In this way covert gender chauvinism and an exaggerated view of state sovereignty can be combined with liberal principles. Idealization masquerading as abstraction yields theories that appear to apply widely, but which covertly exclude those who do not match a certain ideal, or match it less well than others. Those who are excluded are then seen as defective or inadequate (58). Moreover, idealized conceptions both of state sovereignty and of state boundaries limit discussions of international distributive justice. The only way to find theories that have a wide scope is to abstract from the particularities of agents; but, when abstraction is displaced by idealization, we are not led to theories with wide scope but to theories that apply to idealized agents (O’Neill, 1992). Whether this kind of abstraction without idealization is possible or whether it will result in a dialogical way of seeing and understanding and of debating justice issues remains an open question. But it does suggest a way forward to establishing general human interests, for example, in the context of global environmental issues and the situations of justice arising therein. The particularistic corrections to strict neutrality, impartiality or difference-blind positions of liberalism should be welcomed but without creating a false dichotomy that sees all types of universal conceptions as impossible at best and totalitarian or oppressive at worst. The other extreme that puts too much emphasis on the particular and the specific at the cost of the universal and the general, may itself become an obstacle to the elaboration of an inclusive conception of justice. A strict dualism or

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binarism of particular/universal, concrete/abstract need not be created and pushed towards false antagonistic positions. Lessons need to be learned. Oppression and injustice have many faces as Young (1990) has argued. They affect different levels, their victims live in different places and the victimizers, either people or institutions (institutions made and consisting of people and therefore transformable by people) are sometimes different and at other times the same. While some of these faces are easily visible and recognizable, others, more pervasive and structural are not. Harvey (1999) calls these subtle, apparently non-violent but deeply damaging forms of oppressions as civilized oppression. Western societies generally and specific institutions within them may pride themselves on being examples of civilization in practice, yet oppressive relationships may pervade some of these institutions, even though the absence of force and of overt denials makes their analysis challenging and their recognition a matter of skill (Harvey, 1990, 80). If one ignores, or fails to talk about one kind of oppression and protest against another, if one talks of concrete and local situations of injustice and ignores not-so-concrete and global injustices then one is not doing much justice after all. 6. An Outline of a Shared but Differentiated Responsibilities Conception of Environmental Justice A.

Vulnerabilities, capabilities and environmental victims.

The Brundtland Report (WCED) claims that “….inequality is the planet’s main environmental problem” (1987, 5). One could think of inequality as a social and historical problem as well as well, as a cumulative end-product of historical events and processes. A deeper view would think of it as an ethical problem. But one must ask, inequality of what? Or, more precisely, equality of what? As Amartya Sen has done. Sen’s (1999) work on capabilities, freedom of choice and alternatives and their effects on well-being and quality of life are major contributions to moral philosophy and welfare economics. Sen makes a distinction between negative and positive freedoms based on Isaiah Berlin’s concepts of the two terms and, on the other hand, between instrumental and intrinsic freedoms. Negative freedom is understood as the non-interference

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of others in an individual’s affairs whereas positive freedom has a more substantial meaning and is understood as a person’s actual capacities to do something or to be. Recently, Sen (1999) has stressed the role of freedom as the determinant of the quality of our lives and that this quality in particular and development in general should not only be measured with narrow indicators but also by our freedoms to do and be. This means that not only the inequalities of wealth but also those of freedom and capabilities are of concern to us, although there are important linkages between these. If there is a positive relationship between quality of life and quality of environment, it can be argued that the range and quality of one’s freedoms, particularly positive freedom, may also be measured by one’s environment – especially when it directly and critically supports subsistence. Where there is a better environment there is more freedom, or vice versa. This kind of relationship has also been shown by the Environmental Kuznets Curve, the EKC although the relationship and the freedom that makes it possible may be imported or appropriated. Such ecological appropriations for example, have been shown in studies like ecological footprints, appropriated carrying capacity and environmental space that give estimates of how much one region depends on and appropriates resources of other regions (Rees and Wackernagel, 1994). Ecological footprints simply means resources consumed per person. For example, Rees estimates that 4-6 hectares of land are needed to maintain the average consumer lifestyle in the Northern or developed countries. Yet in 1990 the total available productive land was only 1.7 hectares per person globally. Using the example of Netherlands, Rees estimates that Dutch consumption requires 14 times more productive land than is contained within its own borders (figures cited in New Internationalist, 1996). The deficits in this case and most other similar ones are usually expropriated for example, from the resources of lower-income countries usually through free trade in primary products. Torras and Boyce (1998) who have carried out a critical reassessment of the Environmental Kuznet’s Curve (EKC) argue that “changes in the distribution of power are central to the connection between the two phenomenon [income and pollution in the EKC]” (149). The authors make an important observation in their conclusion that, “….as average income in a given country rises, pollution-intensive production may be relocated to lower income countries. If so, this may reflect power inequalities among countries, as well as within them” (158). Since the capitalist world economy is very much infused with risk, and there is a growing hostility from communities in the industrialized world towards

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the siting of risk-producing land uses, an efficient traffic in risk is a logical outcome. Low and Gleeson (1998) have argued that “given these centrifugal social and regulatory pressures, it should be no surprise that environmental organizations are reporting a flourishing trade in toxic wastes, exported mainly from developed countries to developing countries” (122). Today many of the persistent environmental harms and risks are not solved but their impacts are simply shifted from one locality to another. Dryzek (1987) has shown this tendency to displacement using the case of acid rain in USA. It is solved by building tall smokestacks: ‘Instead of polluting areas adjacent to copper smelters in Utah or coalburning power stations in Ohio, the sulfur dioxide ends up in the form of acid rain in rural areas such as the Rocky Mountains or the Adinrondacks’ (16). Dryzek notes three forms of displacement: 1. 2. 3.

spatial displacement for example shifting waste dumps from one place to another displacement through shifting the problem to another medium, for example dumping in the sea instead of on land temporal displacement, when the problem is delayed and displaced into the future, for example the long-term effects of nuclear testing (cited in Low and Gleeson, 1998, 35).

What makes these situations more problematic and unjust is the difficulty in attributing responsibility for ecological disasters. Tragic incidents like Bhopal in India are a good example of how risk-producing entities can get away without shouldering responsibility for their acts. Multinational capital in this particular case was able to solve the issue outside court and cheaply: “Indeed, as the Indian government argued when seeking to have the Bhopal case heard in a USA court, multinational capital is able to use its deterritorialised organizational structure to maximize the advantages of the ‘organized non-liability’” (Low and Gleeson, 1998,127). But there is a more pernicious form of ecocide that is not so visible; a kind of slow death that occurs through sustained poisoning and degradation of environments and life support systems. More than 100 million people are displaced every year from their local environments by mega-development projects in the developing world. Valleys are flooded, villages drowned, land appropriated for more commercial projects the fruits of which are not justly shared. There are numerous small, unreported but equally lethal Bhopals that happen in many of these places:

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Bhopal is being repeated, not just as explosions, infernos, and deadly clouds heard, felt, and seen, the world over, but as ‘mini-Bhopals’– smaller industrial accidents that occur with disturbing frequency in chemical plants in both developed and developing countries. Even more numerous and deadly are the ‘slow-motion Bhopals’– unseen and chronic poisoning from industrial pollution that causes irreversible pain, suffering, and death (Weir, 1987, xi-xii). Returning to Sen (1988): if “the freedom to choose between alternative functioning bundles reflects a person’s ‘advantage’ - his or her ‘capability’ to function” (279), then, conversely, it can be argued that the unfreedom, or the lack or absence of freedom to choose between alternatives will reflect a person’s disadvantage – or his or her incapability of functioning properly. This incapability will also be a reflection or a symptom of the person’s vulnerabilities. A major share of these vulnerabilities could well be due to social-political, institutional and structural constraints that incapacitate and disempower. In the global context, the vulnerabilities of the impoverished providers and those of the impoverished in general are similar in the sense that while the difference certainly exists in degree, it may not exist so much in kind, under certain circumstances. It is possible to think of a situation in which those who are not the most vulnerable impoverished providers in the domestic sphere, who may even be seen as oppressors themselves, are, nevertheless, vulnerable and impoverished on a different scale, in a bigger circle or sphere to which they also belong and upon which they also depend. This comparison is not meant to belittle the experiences and the predicaments of the former and it should not be seen as condoning or justifying the existence of domestic or local structures of oppression. But to recognize that these local spheres of injustice are also situated in and are part of a wider, bigger unjust sphere the workings of which affect all the impoverished – impoverished to different degrees, but nevertheless impoverished: They may find that they are relegated to and subordinated within a domestic sphere, whose separate and distinctive existence is legitimated not by appeals to justice but by entrenched views of family life and honour. They may also find that this domestic sphere is embedded in an economy that is sub-ordinate to distant and richer economies…their rewards fluctuating to the beat of distant economic forces (O’Neill, 1992, 51).

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A serious and fair account of justice cannot ignore the plight of the impoverished providers in marginalized and developing economies but that account of justice cannot also gloss over the predicaments of the impoverished in general, who may be the oppressors in one sphere but the absolutely vulnerable and oppressed in another and who may suffer equally in the wake of ecological disasters, not necessarily, and more important, not equally of their own making. Because the weak and vulnerable are not equal partners in power relations and lack not only the resources that are the determinants of capabilities but also the freedoms to exercise them or the power of agency to employ them, they are often in a disadvantaged position. For example, in international negotiations and transactions the existence of such vulnerabilities cannot give rise to legitimate consent or agreement because of the disparities in access to information and knowledge, the security to dissent and to have an equal say in the change or modification of arrangements. The internal, local and domestic as well as the external, universal relations, unequal exchanges and interdependencies contribute to the circumstances of (in)justice and (in)equity, environmental or otherwise. B.

Responsibility: shared but differentiated.

In our contemporary, rapidly globalising world, in all spheres of commerce and culture if one considers the nature, scope and reach of most accompanying social and environmental influences and the impacts that arise out of the pursuance of different interests through the complex mechanisms of interdependencies and interactions, then one is faced with rather novel situations. These are situations of mutual involvement of agents, be they individuals, groups, states or multinational corporations, with their corresponding mutual claims of rights and obligations. That these impacts can be, and actually are, variable within and across boundaries and spheres, both in degree and in kind, and with which agents with different vulnerabilities and capabilities struggle to cope, cannot be overemphasized. In such scenarios obligations to others decrease in strength as one moves away from one’s immediate circle, although Wenz (1988) has argued, the impacts and consequences of actions of some may not necessarily decrease with distance from the inner most core 4 . In fact, the very commonality of many environmental resources and services they provide gives them a global reach. The extent of an action’s impact can therefore no longer be restricted to a certain sphere or circle and this obviously creates an

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imperative of responsibility among people who may or may not be the inhabitants of the same ecological or geographical space, or for that matter kinship circle. As mentioned earlier, in Dryzek’s view these problems are merely moved around or displaced rather than being dealt with in a meaningful way. For instance, if the extent of an action’s impact goes far beyond conventional political units and forms, like the state, then what conceptions of community, justice and ethics are required to deal with these displacements? For example, instead of tinkering with the dominant logic of international relations that precludes any attempt to expand the notion of community, should we not be asking more fundamental questions about these issues? Does the state exhaust our political obligations, or are there wider and more fundamental obligations that survive, so to speak, the fragmentation of the human race into sovereign states? If there are surviving obligations, are they the obligations that states owe one another as members of a society of states? Are there duties that the individual owes to the whole of humanity, and are there rights that individuals can claim to turn against the human species and its political representatives? To what extent are there universal obligations not just to uphold the rights of human beings as far as possible within the current system, but to construct new global institutions and practices capable of realizing higher levels of human community and solidarity? (Linklater, 1990, 136-37). Fain (1987) has argued for a task-theoretic normative politics. He sees the global nature of tasks as an appropriate defining category for these concepts of community, moral obligation and global responsibility. Fain has argued against legal conceptualism and sees a normative imperative behind global problems. Since certain tasks cannot be solved by individuals or nation states, what we need is a notion of belonging and responsibility to a larger community. Similarly, Warner (1993) has suggested that “the parameters of the community to whom one is responsible…vary according to the issue” and that “the relationship between community and responsibility becomes crucial once we leave the liberal individual/state” (441). But I would argue that the relationship between the individual and the world – both social and natural worlds also becomes crucial once we move away from individualist notions of the self. The complex patterns of changes in the world today must also be

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accompanied by an expansion in the notions of self, community, belonging, responsibility and justice. However, “because engagement with the world is necessarily ‘global’ in its scope, but the world is characterized by a multiplicity of agents none of whom can single-handedly bear the burden of global responsibility, the way in which our ethical responsibility is to be acted upon has to be contested and negotiated” (Campbell, 1993, 99). These multiple agents with different capabilities to cope with and handle burdens may find themselves in a world that thrusts upon them a disproportionate number of risks and dangers. Because of the essentially differentiated impacts on common ecological resources and functions by different agents with different capabilities and vulnerabilities, it is argued that, a theory of justice, which is compatible with a critical conception of ecological sustainability must be based on the principle of shared but differentiated responsibilities. Responsibility as not merely shared but differently shared because of differences and asymmetries that are the main, even definitive feature of societies and the world at large. This is also because “responsibility…is a function of power and knowledge” (Jonas, 1984, 123) and it is a well known fact that power and knowledge (already a determinant of much power and the information gap) have never been so unequally and disproportionately wielded as they are today. Jonas (1984) has argued that “power conjoined with reason carries responsibility with it” (138) or, that: …responsibility is a correlate of power, so that the scope and kind of power determine the scope and kind of responsibility. When power and its constant exercise grow to certain dimensions, then not only the magnitude but also the qualitative nature of responsibility changes (sic), with the effect that deeds of power generate the contents of the ‘ought’, which thus is essentially in answer to what is being done (Jonas, 1984, 128). Jonas’s concern is about the future, future generations and the future of the planet itself but his thesis on the imperative of responsibility and his exploration of an ethics for a technological age can apply equally to the contemporary world of impoverished and vulnerable agents; to the intra-generational and international scene as well as to the intergenerational scenario. His thesis rests on following basic distinctions: “The first and most general condition of responsibility is causal power, that is, that acting makes an impact on the world; the second, that such

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acting is under the agent’s control; and third, that he can foresee its consequences to some extent” (Jonas, 1984, 90). Jonas’s generalisations can be viewed in a more detailed manner when the asymmetries of power wielded by different agents, their differentiated capacities, capabilities, the consequent disproportionate impacts, and freedoms to control and foresee consequences become more visible. What is revealed under the magnifying lens will have implications for a theory of justice based on the principle of shared but differentiated responsibilities. In such a schema, justice requires that the vulnerable be at least capable and have the freedom to cope and function, let’s say, in an environmental emergency. This may well require an unequal treatment, a biased and impartial treatment in favour of the vulnerable. This kind of compensation - not to be confused with aid and charity - will be legitimate given the fact that the contemporary injustices and inequalities, of opportunities and freedoms are not sudden phenomena but are often accumulations that carry historical baggage. This is not an entirely new insight. For example, in many democratic societies the system of taxing (the more egalitarian a society, the more progressive the taxing), more or less, performs the same function. It appears that among other reasons, it is done because there is a public value system that demands it as a matter of social justice. In historical terms, most societies have functioned under similar principles of justice as Bookchin has argued. Bookchin (1991) refers to the principles of irreducible minimum and the equality of unequals as inherent features of many organic societies: The principle of the irreducible minimum thus affirms the existence of inequality within the group - inequality of physical and mental powers, of skills and virtuosity, of psyches and proclivities. It does so not to ignore these inequalities or denigrate them, but on the contrary, to compensate for them…organic society tends to operate unconsciously according to the equality of unequals - that is, a freely given, unreflective form of social behaviour and distribution that compensates inequalities and does not yield to the fictive claim…that everyone is equal (Bookchin, 1991, 144 original emphasis). But in the modern liberal tradition the blindfolded Justitia and her scales must dispense equal and exact justice. All competing and conflicting claims and interests are equalised and must be resolved blindly in a balanced manner:

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Indeed, all scales can ever do is to reduce qualitative difference to quantitative ones. Accordingly, everyone must be equal before Justitia; her blindfold prevents her from drawing any distinctions between [and]…from making any changes of measure due to difference among her supplicants….But persons are very different indeed, as the primordial equality of unequals had recognized. Justitia’s rule of equality - of equivalence - thus completely reverses the old principle. Inasmuch as all are theoretically ‘equal’ in her unseeing eyes, although often grossly unequal in fact, she turns the equality of unequals into the inequality of equals….Accordingly, the rule of equivalence, as symbolized by the scales in Justitia’s hand, calls for balance, not compensation (Bookchin, 1991,148 original emphasis). Thinking in such a radical way about justice “….demands more, not less, to be just to the vulnerable” (O’Neill, 1992, 69 original emphasis).This kind of an orientation, if not an elaborate theory of, justice based on a general human interest and such a conception of responsibilities is essential if sustainability and social justice, not only within societies but also among societies, has to be achieved. This could be an essential element of an ecological sensibility, ecological rationality and of ecological virtue as part of a new reconstitution of human subjectivity. 7.

Conclusion The claims of ordinary morality, the clamour for a kind of state conduct that does not almost inevitably lead to deceit and violence, cannot be suppressed. We must remember that states are led by human beings whose actions affect human beings within and outside: considerations of good and evil, right and wrong are therefore both inevitable and legitimate” (Hoffman cited in Goulet, 1992, 231).

Justice is important and justice discourses are inescapable even in these sceptical postmodern times. Justice is important not only in its narrow, contractarian-legalistic and distributive sense but also in its more substantially ethical and moral sense. Approximately a quarter of humanity is trapped in absolute poverty and destitution. We have entered the twenty first century with all of humanity’s achievements and glories

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but injustices of all kinds in all societies stare us right in the face. But now there is a new twist to all these circumstances of injustice in the form of ecological degradation that can potentially threaten and – is already threatening in some places - the very survival of all life including ours, on this planet. Justice is understood differently depending upon so many things some of which have been discussed in this chapter. The principles or bases of justice are diverse. The seemingly strict and opposing dichotomies like universal and particular, abstract and concrete/context sensitive etc. not only criticize and therefore, inform and correct each other but importantly, they also complement each other in many other ways although it may not appear so. Each can be enriched and broadened by the critical stance taken by the other. In the context of environmental justice I have tried to argue that it is not helpful to stick to one or the other in a strict manner. For example, the postmodernist criticism of abstract universalism and the apparently universalist solutions to issues of justice should be welcomed but with caution. If the grand narratives of the old universalism were faulty, as is often argued, and did not deliver as expected and hoped, then we need new universalisms and alternative grand narratives. The critiques of universalism should now focus more on type of universalism rather than universalism per se, or, whose universalism? We must look into other universalisms and try to learn or in other words, we must go through the pre-universalistic, with all its attendant anxieties, disagreements, frustrations before arriving at a truly inclusive universalism. There is no escaping, or perhaps there should not be, from grand narratives if there is to be a universal answer to injustices that arise out of events, interactions and arrangements that influence different peoples at different places, some of whom are within the boundaries of the nation-states and some outside these, as in the case of many injustices caused by trans-boundary environmental problems. Grand narratives are part of human existence. Humanity should keep striving to create new narratives, or re-interpret the old ones, for the good of all. There may be objections that the differences - methodological, theoretical and/or ideological - are not trivial between the positions on justice usually taken. But again, it is argued that if the old universalism and its baggage, which many contemporary commentators are so critical of, did not fulfil every promise then perhaps it is because it was not truly universal in the first place. Bikkhu Parekh has unpacked some of these old western-liberal claims and has shown them to be an already, ideally established universalism that refuses to converse with other worldviews on their own terms. He has called such non-dialogic impositions as ethnocentric universalism (1999). In a similar vein Blaney and Inayatullah

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(1994) have argued that “we replace a monologue of a purified self, whether core or periphery, with a dialogue of self and other as a simultaneously internal and international conversations” (45). For example, Bader (1995) argues that “historically, all known forms of ‘liberal-democratic’ or ‘republican universalism’ up till now are badly disguised versions of chauvinism” (232). For instance, these forms did not include or, at times, did not even acknowledge the visions, hopes, and modes of thought of all peoples. They were flawed because they were built on wrong or distorted assumptions about others, especially oppressive views about the victims of history. They had a tendency to extend particular notions to universal proportions and to insist that that particular was objective, neutral and impartial. But what is more important is that this kind of new universalism, out of which a comprehensive and inclusive conception and understanding of justice will have a good chance of emerging, will not be given; it will have to be established through democratic deliberation and inclusive participation, through a dialogue of visions and of cultures. In other words, these truly democratic narratives will have to be established dialogically which may well mean a radical revision, even inversion, of the old assumptions about self, society, nature and particularly about the others of the dominant categories, as they have so far been historically seen and defined. This is one prerequisite, a crucial one, for a theory of justice, environmental or otherwise and applicable at different levels. Because after all is said and done, sustainability, however defined, requires no less a definition of community than one that includes humanity - all of it and all its peoples - as its members. In a transparently discursive and dialogically reached conception of justice the particular as well as the universal is the planet itself. The category of the nation-state, as it developed from the European experience through the treaty of Westphalia in 1648 and onwards, along with all its monopolistic paraphernalia of violence has historically “sought to limit the scope of both subnational and transnational solidarities and identities” (Linklater, 1990, 149). Because of the fear of its internationalisation, the idea of community has thus remained limited to the boundary of the nation-state. As Linklater (1990) has argued psychological states have sought a monopoly over the right to define political identity, because “their survival and their success have largely depended upon it” (149). If within this kind of framework moral and political inclusion remains fixated with concern for human beings within state boundaries, it is almost impossible to imagine the inclusion of nonhuman species to make up a community of life forms, as a dominant

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concern of ecological justice (Low and Gleeson, 1998). A fixed and immutable way of seeing states and cultures in international society, “as radically alterior, representing for the other merely difference” (Blaney and Inayatullah, 1994, 45) must therefore be transcended. The ability to imagine beyond such rigid categories for the definition and identification of the self must be recovered and nurtured and for this to happen a different conscious kind of cartography of the mind and mental spaces will be needed. In the end we as human beings and as peoples are all responsible for what happens to this planet and to all its life forms. But since, as people, and groups of people, our contributions, both historical and contemporary and towards environmental goods and bads, are not of the same order and kind, the corresponding responsibilities especially for harms to others, must also not be the same and equal but differentiated, justly differentiated if justice is to be done. The past of the species was not shared responsibly and justly by all its members, but both rationality and ethics demand that its future destiny, an ecologically sustainable and socially just one, must be a shared responsibility.

Notes 1

Some of these perspectives are, for example, social ecology and the works of social ecologists like Murray Bookchin; ecosocialism and the works of ecosocialists like James O’Connor and some Third World perspectives like those of Vandana Shiva, Ramachandra Guha and Arturo Escobar. For a brief and useful comparison of some of these perspectives with other sustainable development (SD) discourses like market environmentalism and ecological modernization see Nicholas Low and Brenden Gleeson, 1998, Justice, Society and Nature, London: Routledge, chapter 7. 2 For some earlier definitions and discussions of critical natural capital see R.K. Turner and D. Pearce, 1993, ‘Sustainable economic development:

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economic and ethical principles’, in: E. Barbier (ed.), Economics an Ecology: New Frontiers and Sustainable Development, London: Chapman and Hall, and English Nature, 1994, Sustainability in Practice: Planning for Environmental Sustainability, Peterborough: English Nature. English Nature defines critical natural capital as “those assets, stock levels or quality levels that are highly valued; and also either essential to human health, essential to the efficient functioning of life-support systems, or irreplaceable or unsubstitutable for all practical purposes”, quoted by Holland, 1999, 286, Note.15, in A. Dobson (ed.), Fairness and Futurity: Essays on Environmental Sustainability and Social Justice, Oxford: Oxford University Press 3 Mark Sagoff (1995), for example appears to be against such a notion of critical natural capital or, in general, against a limits to growth concept conceding that “the thesis that there are significant natural limits to growth remains intuitively appealing”, “Carrying capacity and ecological economics”, Bioscience, 45(9) p. 612, (emphasis added). This skepticism may well be objectionable but at the same time there are other perspectives that challenge such scarcity theories by questioning the very conception of nature and nature-society relationships that inform them. For example, from a social ecology perspective, Murray Bookchin (1996) argues that based on a dialectical and ethical understanding of self, nature and society-nature relationship (as opposed to an instrumental one), nature may well be a realm of abundance and freedom. He argues: “one of the most entrenched ideas in Western thought is the notion that nature is a harsh realm of necessity, a domain of unrelenting lawfulness and compulsion. From this underlying idea, two extreme attitudes have emerged. Either humanity must yield with religious or ecological humility to the dicta of ‘natural law’ and take its abject place side by side with the lowly ants…or it must ‘conquer’ nature by means of its technological and rational astuteness, in a shared project ultimately to ‘liberate’ all of humanity from the compulsion of natural “necessity”---an enterprise that may well entail the subjugation of human by human” (The Philosophy of Social Ecology: Essays in Dialectical Naturalism, Montreal: Black Rose Books, 71). The conceptual contrast between such views and the atomist, cost-benefit calculus view of self and nature could not be sharper and profound; a contrast that will inform and eventually influence discourses of environmental politics and justice. 4 Peter Wenz writes: “the closer our relationship is to someone or something, the greater the number of our obligations in that relationship,

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and/or the stronger our obligations in that relationship. My obligations toward a person increase with proximity to me of the circle on which the person exists” (P. Wenz, 1988, Environmental Justice, New York: SUNY Press, 316). This has remarkable resemblance to Sidgwick’s nineteenthcentury common-sense morality Sidgwick, long before Wenz’s concentric circles theory was formulated, said: “ we should all agree that each of us is bound to show kindness to his parents and spouse and children, and to other kinsmen in a less degree: and to those who have rendered services to him, and any others whom he may have admitted to his intimacy and called friends: and to neighbours and to fellow-countrymen more than others: and perhaps we may say to those of our own race more than to black or yellow men, and generally to human beings in proportion to their affinity to ourselves”, cited in A. Belsey (1992), ‘World poverty, justice and equality’, in: R. Attfield and B. Wilkins (eds.) International Justice and the Third World, Routledge, London, 38). Belsey rightly objects to such views that it is indeed true that most people’s behaviours are exactly of that nature but is it justified to make a virtue out of this kind of rationalization of self-centeredness and then base a theory of justice on it especially in relation to issues and actions that have impacts, some of them very harmful, across boundaries, territories---national or otherwise---and “circles”?

References Attfield, R. and B. Wilkins, (eds.) (1992), International justice and the Third World. London: Routledge. Bader, V. (1995), ‘Citizenship and exclusion: radical democracy, community, and justice. or what is wrong with communitarianism?’ Political theory, 23 (2): 211-246. Bader, V. (1999), ‘Religious pluralism: secularism or priority for democracy’, Political theory, 27(5): 597-633. Beitz, C.R. (1979), Political theory and international relations. New Jersey: Princeton University Press.

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Belsey, A. (1992), ‘World Poverty, justice and equality’, in: R. Attfield and B. Wilkins, B. (eds.) International justice and the Third World. Routledge: London Blaney, D. and N. Inayatullah (1994), ‘Prelude to a conversation of cultures in international society? Todorov and Nandy on the possibility of dialogue’, Alternatives, 19: 23-51. Boerner, C. and T. Lambert (1995), ‘Environmental injustice’, Public interest, Winter: 61-82. Bookchin, M. (1990), Remaking society, pathways to a green future. Boston, MA: South End Press. Bookchin, M. (1991), The ecology of freedom: the emergence and dissolution of hierarchy. Montreal: Black Rose Books. Bookchin, M. (1995), Re-enchanting humanity, a defense of the human spirit against anti-humanism, misanthropy, mysticism and primitivism. London: Cassell. Boyce, J.K. (1994), ‘Inequality as a cause of environmental degradation’, Ecological Economics, 11: 169-178. Bullard, R.D, (1994), ‘Overcoming racism in environmental decision making’, Environment, 36(4): 10-44. Campbell, D. (1993), Politics without principle: sovereignty, ethics and the narratives of the Gulf War. Boulder, Colorado, Lynn Reinner. Carens, J. (1999), ‘Justice as evenhandedness’, Seminar, 484: 46-49. Cohen, S., D. Demeritt, J. Robinson and D. Rothman (1998), ‘Climate change and sustainable development: towards a dialogue’, Global environmental change, 8 (4): 341-371. Collins, R.W, (1993), ‘Environmental equity and the need for government intervention: two prospects’, Environment, 35 (9): 41-43.

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Cutter, S. (1995), ‘Race, class and environmental justice’, Progress in human geography, 19(1): 111-122. Daly, H. and J. Cobb (1989), For the common good: restructuring the economy toward community, the environment and a sustainable future. Boston: Beacon Press. Daly, H. (1995), ‘Reply to Mark Sagoff’s “Carrying capacity and ecological economics”’, Bioscience, 45(9): 621-624. Dobson, A. (1998), Justice and the environment: conceptions of environmental sustainability and dimensions of social justice. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Dryzek, J. (1987), Rational ecology, environment and political economy. Oxford: Blackwell. Fain, H. (1987), Normative politics and the community of nations. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Goulet, D. (1992), ‘International ethics and human rights’, Alternatives, 17: 231-246. Grass, R, (1995), ‘Environmental education and environmental justice: a three circles perspective’, Pathways to outdoor communication. 5(1): 913. Guha, R. and J. Martinez-Alier (1997), Varieties of environmentalism: essays north and south. London: Earthscan Harvey, J. (1999), ‘Justice theory and oppression’, in: C. Wilson, (ed.) Civilization and oppression. Canadian Journal of Philosophy Supplementary Volume 25, Calgary, Alberta: University of Calgary Press. Hofrichter, R. (1993), ‘Introduction’, in: E. Hofrichter and L. Gibbs (eds.) Toxic struggles: the theory and practice of environmental justice. Philadelphia, PA: New Society Publishers.

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Holland, A. (1994), ‘Natural capital’, in R. Attfield, and A. Belsey, (eds.) Philosophy and the natural environment. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Holland, A. (1999), ‘Sustainability: should we start here?, in A Dobson . (ed.), Fairness and futurity: essays on environmental sustainability and social justice. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Jacobs, M. (1999), ‘Sustainable development as a contested concept’, in: A, Dobson, (ed.), Fairness and futurity: essays on environmental sustainability and social justice. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Jamieson, D. (1994), ‘Global environmental justice’, in: R. Attfield, R. and A. Belsey (eds.) Philosophy and the natural environment. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Jonas, H. (1984), The imperative of responsibility: in search of an ethics for the technological age. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Kobayashi, A. and L. Peake (2000), ‘Racism out of place: thoughts on whiteness and an antiracist geography in the new millennium’, Annals of the Association of American Geographers. 90(2):392-403. Lele Sharachandram, M. (1991), ‘Sustainable development: a critical review’, World development,. 19 (6): 607-621. Linklater, A. (1990), ‘The problem of community in international relations’, Alternatives, 15: 135-153. Low, N. and B. Gleeson, (1998), Justice, society and nature: an exploration of political ecology. London: Routledge. Morrison, T. (1992), Playing in the dark: whiteness and the literary imagination. Picador: London. Nielsen, K. (1992), ‘Global justice, capitalism and the Third World’, in: R. Attfield and B. Wilkins (eds.) International justice and the Third World. London: Routledge.

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Norton, B. (1999), ‘Ecology and opportunity: intergenerational equity and sustainable options’, in: A. Dobson (ed.), Fairness and futurity: essays on environmental sustainability and social justice. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Olson, R.L. (1995), ‘Sustainability as a social vision’, Journal of social issues, 51(4): 15-35. O’Neill, O. (1988), ‘Ethical reasoning and ideological pluralism’, Ethics, 98: 705-722. O’Neill, O. (1992), ‘Justice, gender and international boundaries’, in: R. Attfield, R. and B. Wilkins (eds.) International justice and the Third World. London: Routledge. O’Riordan, T. (1993), ‘The politics of sustainability’, in: R.K. Turner (ed.), Sustainable environmental economics and management. London: Belhaven Press. Owen, S. (1994), ‘Land, limits and sustainability: a conceptual framework and some dilemmas for the planning system’, Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers. 19: 439-456. Parekh, B. (1999), ‘Non-ethnocentric universalism’, in: T. Dunne and N. Wheeler, Human rights in global politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pearce, D. (1993), Blueprint 3: measuring sustainable development. London: Earthscan. Penz, P. (1998), ‘Environmental victims and state sovereignty: a normative analysis’, in: C. Williams (ed.) Environmental victims. London: Earthscan.

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Pulido, L. (2000), ‘Rethinking environmental racism: white privilege and urban development in southern California’, Annals of the Association of American Geographers. 90(1): 12-40. Rawls, J. (1973), A theory of justice. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Rees, W. and M. Wackernagel, (1994), ‘Ecological footprints and appropriated carrying capacity’, in: A.M. Jansson et. al, (eds.) Investing in natural capital: the ecological economics approach to sustainability Washington DC: Island Press. Sagoff, M. (1995), ‘Carrying capacity and ecological economics’, Bioscience, 45(9): 610-620. Sen, A. (1988), ‘Freedom of choice’, European economic review, 32: 269294 Sen, A. (1995), ‘Food and freedom’, in: S. Corbridge (ed.), Development studies: a reader. London: Arnold. Sen, A. (1999), Development as freedom. Oxford: Oxford University Press: Smith, N. (1993), ‘Homeless/Global: scaling places’, in: J. Bird, B. Curtis, T. Putnam, and G. Robertson (eds.), Mapping the futures: local cultures, global change. London: Routledge. Torras, M. and Boyce, J.K. (1998), ‘Income, inequality, and pollution: a reassessment of the environmental Kuznets curve’, Ecological Economics, 25: 147-160. Weir, D. (1987), The Bhopal syndrome: pesticides, environment and health. San Francisco: Sierra Club. Wenz, P. (1988), Environmental justice. New York: SUNY Press. World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED), (1987), Our common future. (The Brundtland Report), Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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Yapa, L. (1997), ‘Reply: Why discourse matters, materially’, Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 87(4): 717-722. Young, I.M. (1990), Justice and the politics of difference. New Jersey: Princeton University Press.


Section C

Global Citizenship, Trade and Environmental Justices


Fairtrade and the International Moral Economy: Within and Against the Market 1 Gavin Fridell Over the past two decades, globalisation and its related neoliberal policies of trade liberalization and state downsizing have resulted in increases in underemployment, poverty, and inequality in most underdeveloped countries (Berry, 1998). These negative social impacts have been accompanied by a global environmental crisis characterized by overpopulation, the destruction of the ozone layer, loss of genetic diversity, acid rain, nuclear contamination, tropical deforestation, desertification, floods, famines, pollution of coastal waters, toxic waste— the list goes on. As globalisation tears down the socio-political barriers that once inhibited the unchecked operation of the global market, the imperatives of capitalism—the single-minded pursuit of accumulation driven by the corporate need to remain competitive and survive—take precedence over the imperatives of ecological and social justice (Foster, 1994, 11-33). In response to the negative impact of globalisation, new alternative economic projects have emerged initiated by those whom globalisation has cast off. 2 Among these projects have been efforts to organize fairtrade production and commercial exchange to combat the injustices of global capitalism by promoting the principles of democratic organization, no child labour, recognized trade unions for workers, and environmental sustainability. Fairtrade goods are exchanged under the terms of a minimum guaranteed price and include social premiums paid by the buyer to producer communities for the development of social infrastructure such as hospitals, roads, and schools. The goal is to forge a long-term relationship between buyer and seller that can provide some stability against market fluctuations. 3 Fairtrade goods are certified by independent labelling initiatives that audit fairtrade producers, retailers, and processors and then grant those who qualify the right to use the fairtrade label in exchange for a user fee. The largest fairtrade labelling initiative in the world is Max Havelaar/Trans Fair, which is composed of National Initiatives (NIs) in seventeen countries in Europe, North America, and Japan and recently formed into Fairtrade Labelling Organizations International (FLO) in order to coordinate better the various national efforts. FLO currently has standards for seven commodities: coffee, cocoa, honey, cane sugar, tea, bananas and orange juice. Consumers in Switzerland have purchased the

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___________________________________________________________ greatest quantity of fairtrade certified goods (34.8% of all FLO certified fairtrade products from 1997-2000), followed by consumers in the Netherlands (24.7%), Germany (17.6%), Great Britain (9.8%) and the remaining fairtrade countries (13.1%--among them is the US at 0.2% of the total). Mexico, Spain, and Australia are currently in the process of developing their own fairtrade initiatives (FLO, 2001). Over the past thirty years, the fairtrade network has grown steadily and made some notable inroads into European and North American markets. In 2000, FLO estimated the total value of retail turnover of fairtrade labelled products to be over 220 million Euros, representing an increase of over 400% since the early 1990s. 4 The growth of fairtrade represents an alternative to the destructiveness of the unchecked global capitalist market. Nowhere is this more apparent than with the development of fairtrade coffee, the largest fairtrade sector. In recent years, fairtrade coffee certified by FLO has taken over as much as 5 percent of the coffee market in Switzerland, 3 percent in the Netherlands, and around 1 percent for the rest of Europe (Renard, 1999, 496). The majority of fairtrade coffee is organic and is produced under the shade of fruit and nitrogen-fixing trees essential for a variety of animals and reptiles, with little or no use of chemical fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides. The guaranteed price and social premium paid to fairtrade farmers has allowed communities to develop hospitals, schools, roads, processing facilities and other infrastructure which has raised living standards and made peasant livelihoods more viable. This has permitted peasants to resist seizure of their land by loggers and ranchers. In sharp contrast to this is the traditional, unfair system of coffee production which is characterized by the widespread use of Green Revolution chemicals, a reduced-shade production system, the hyper-exploitation of the labouring poor, and a variety of other negative social and ecological by-products. 5 Despite its growth over the past few decades, fairtrade remains a tiny proportion of global trade. In the long term, the ability of fairtrade to expand and broaden its benefits will depend on its ability to challenge the rule of the market. While many authors tend to view fairtrade as a way for producers to seek new opportunities on the global market, fairtrade must, in the end, be about challenging the imperatives of the specifically capitalist global market if it wishes to become a real alternative to exploitation-as-usual. Under the dictates of the capitalist market, individuals must enter into the market in order to gain access to the means of subsistence, and the imperative of competition drives all producers to accumulate and exploit their workers or themselves in order to remain competitive and survive (Meiksins Wood, 1999, McNally, 1993). Fairtrade does not challenge the basic social relations of capitalist

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production, which underlie these imperatives. In general, fairtrade producers are either small private property owners who must compete in the market to maintain their land, or property-less workers who must enter the labour market to gain access to the means of subsistence. Fairtrade cooperatives tend to focus on marketing and processing, and seek protection from the whims of the market for individual property owners through cooperative means. Yet, despite its implicit acceptance of capitalist social relations, fairtrade does attempt to challenge the imperatives of the market at the point of exchange and to provide an alternative to the individualistic culture of capitalism. 1.

Entering the Market: A Market Niche?

With varying degrees of reluctance, most commentators depict fairtrade, at least in the short term, as little more than a market niche. Fairtrade producers have taken advantage of the existence of a socially and ecologically conscious consumer base in Europe and North America to enter the market under more favourable conditions. 6 Moral and ideological considerations such as social justice and environmental sustainability are an “ethical premium” (Blowfield, 1999, 760-761) or a “market advantage” which “adds value” to the final product (Renard, 1999, 490). Having entered the market through their market niche, fairtraders now seek to expand their consumer base by gaining greater access to mainstream coffee roasters and supermarkets. To do this, fairtraders must develop a marketing formula based on store display, advertising strategies, and the promotion of top-quality coffee to please consumers in the North and gain their loyalty (Simpson and Rapone, 2000, Ransom, 2001). Seen in this way, the short and medium-term viability of fairtrade is based on fairtraders abilities to sell ethics to consumers (Renard, 1999). David Ransom, editorial member of the New Internationalist, cautions: “Before you know it – and if you’re not very careful indeed – fairtrade takes on an uncomfortably close resemblance to any other trade” (Ransom, 2001, 108). Analyzing fairtrade as a market niche reveals how it remains confined by the capitalist market and the imperative of competition. While cooperation and solidarity among fairtrade producers and between producers and importers is indeed strong, as a group fairtraders must compete on the market against cheaper, “unfair” goods (Blowfield, 1999, 766). The very survival of fairtrade depends on the abilities of fairtraders to steal market shares from traditional producers by winning consumer loyalty. In this context, the market remains the final arbiter of prices as fairtraders seek to negotiate the “difficult compromise between ethical

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___________________________________________________________ principles and the market” (Renard, 1999, 497). While the price for fairtrade goods must be higher than the market norm to justify labelling them as fair in the first place, if the prices are too high consumers will not be willing to pay them. In the final analysis, fairness is measured economically by how much of an ethical premium consumers in the North are willing to pay in the market. In addition, while the values of cooperation and solidarity within the fairtrade network are strong, the weight of the global economy still imposes the imperative of competition upon it. According to sociologist Marie Christine Renard, many fairtrade coffee producers will still sell their coffee to traditional middlemen in times of crisis or when international prices are competitive with fairtrade prices, without regard for the needs of the fairtrade coffee network. The need to compete and survive is a powerful imperative against the values of solidarity and cooperation. Of greater importance are the signs that key sectors of the fairtrade network may be approaching their market limit. According to FLO, sales of fairtrade tea increased only slightly from 1999-2000 by under 2%, sales of fairtrade orange juice declined significantly in Germany despite an overall upward trend, and total sales of fairtrade honey declined by over 3% (FLO, 2001). The most alarming trend has been the declining growth of the fairtrade coffee market. According to Renard, while exports of fairtrade coffee grew significantly from 4,500 tons in 1991 to 12,000 tons in 1996 they did not grow fast enough to match the growth of new fairtrade coffee cooperatives. Consequently, Renard states: “while this network was intended to avoid mechanisms for competition, they begin to appear (such as roasters conditioning their purchase of coffee, or the preference for some qualities and/or cooperatives)” (Renard, 1999, 498). For the fiscal year 1999-2000, fairtrade coffee sales did not increase at all, causing FLO to be reluctant to register any new fairtrade coffee organizations. These realities threaten to impose escalating competition on fairtrade producers as they battle to maintain their share of fairtrade sales, or spark competition between fairtrade and mainstream producers as the latter struggle to gain access to the fairtrade market. They also threaten to erode fairtrade’s social and ecological justice goals as the network battles to compete with the mainstream coffee sector for global market sales. FLO attributes the stagnation of the fairtrade coffee market primarily to the large price difference between fairtrade and conventional coffee which has widened significantly over the past few years due to aggressive new competition from Vietnamese producers (FLO, 2001). How will fairtrade respond to such fierce price competition? These are the realities of occupying a market niche.

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Despite these difficulties, analysing fairtrade as a market niche presents only part of the picture. The principles of fairtrade pose a significant challenge to the logic of the market and the culture of capitalism even if everyday realities force fairtraders to compete within the market that they oppose. Thus fairtrade attempts to operate both within and against the market. For this reason, as Ransom optimistically states: “fairtraders are used to getting their hands dirty and still keeping clean. In some ways their ‘entryism’ is more subversive than staying forever on the outside looking in” (Ransom, 2001, 108-109). 2.

Against the Market: An International Moral Economy

As E.P. Thomson has pointed out, it is difficult for anyone in our present age to imagine that at an earlier point in world history it appeared unnatural that one person should profit by denying others the basic right to subsistence. Yet this conviction was common amongst local communities in pre-capitalist societies before the imperatives of the capitalist market and the new ideology of political economy replaced the “old moral economy of provision” (Thompson, 1971, 136). In his work on eighteenth century England, the nation where capitalism first took root, Thompson describes the pre-capitalist moral economy of the poor where notions of common well being, often supported by paternalistic traditional authorities, imposed some limits on the free operations of the market. Premised on an eroded body of statute law, common law, and local customs, the moral economy of provision asserted that farmers were not allowed to withhold their produce from local markets to wait for prices to increase, that the actions of middlemen were legally suspect and restricted, and that the poor had to be provided with opportunities to purchase grain, flour, or other basic foods in small parcels with properly supervised weights and measures. If the moral economy were violated and the starving masses found themselves in a situation where they did not feel they were being offered a fair price, riots, which often involved the participants setting new prices for bread and other foods, ensued. According to Thompson, the nineteenth century saw the defeat of the old moral economy of provision and the victory of the new political economy of the free market which, drawing on the work of Adam Smith, asserted that the natural supply and demand of the free market would benefit everyone and maximize societies potential (Thompson, 1971; Meiksins Wood, 1999). The greatest virtue of fairtrade lies in its attempt to take advantage of its market niche to construct a new moral economy, one that crosses national boundaries and re-asserts the notion of people’s right to

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___________________________________________________________ live by taking precedence over the flows of supply and demand. Whereas the old moral economy described by Thompson asserted the rights of poor consumers to gain access to the means of life, the new moral economy of fairtrade asserts the right of poor producers to get a fair price for what they sell on the market. The international moral economy of fairtrade asserts principles that challenge the logic of the capitalist market. Whereas the market generates no incentive to invest in such things as roads, sewers, schools, parks, and hospitals except where a profit can be made, a portion of the profits from fairtrade sales is paid by the buyer to the producer communities as a social premium to promote the collective good and construct such much-needed infrastructure (McNally, 1993). Moreover, the minimum guaranteed price under which fairtrade goods are exchanged—a portion of which is paid to farmers prior to harvest in order to assist them in their work—is a significant departure from conventional pricing, which is determined by global commodity markets plagued by speculation and glut. The result is prices that are generally well above the market price. Equal Exchange, a U.S. fairtrade importer-roaster with sales over $3.5 million annually, estimates that between 1988 and 1992 it paid $750,000 more to coffee producers than would have been justified by conventional prices (Simpson and Rapone, 2000, Renard, 1999). In recent months, world export prices for specialty coffee have taken a staggering dive from around $1 to $0.49 per pound while fairtrade coffee prices have remained at $1.26 per pound. The difference in price has saved many fairtrade producers from the bankruptcy, mass migration, and starvation experienced by tens of thousands of small-scale coffee farmers worldwide. 7 This is a consequence of the founding of a nascent international moral economy in which consumers and producers unite to demand greater social and ecological justice than the imperatives of the market allow. Another important way in which fairtrade’s moral economy confronts the logic of the market is by promoting a “critical consumer culture” which challenges the individualistic, competitive, and ethically impoverished culture of capitalism (Simpson and Rapone, 2000, 54). While the regular operations of the capitalist market are incapable of providing meaningful information about the social effects of private transactions, fairtraders seek to inform consumers about the working conditions of producers and forge greater personal links between the two (Barratt Brown, 1993, Ransom, 2001, Simpson and Rapone, 2000). This poses a significant challenge to what Marx termed the fetishism of commodities—where social relations among people appear as relations among things—a necessary outcome of the capitalist market in which

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people engage as atomized workers and consumers. As summarised by Diane Elson, the capitalist market requires, …treating people merely instrumentally, not as ends in themselves. The market does not encourage me to relate to others as fellow-citizens, members of the same community, who have a multiplicity of goals besides buying products, but only as factors in production processes that have produced the goods available to me to buy. I am able to buy these goods because I have acquired purchasing power through selling my labor power as a factor in the production of goods for someone else (Elson, 1988, 16-17). Fairtrade’s moral economy not only involves ethically-minded consumers purchasing fairtrade goods, but it also entails activists in the North putting political pressure on transnational corporations to offer fairtrade to their consumers or to participate directly in fairtrade. The most notable example of this has been the campaign to force Starbucks Coffee, the world’s largest specialty coffee roaster, to sell fairtrade coffee in its 2,300 stores across the US. Due to pressure by Global Exchange, a San Francisco human-rights group, Starbucks agreed to sell fairtrade certified coffee in April 2000, three days before protests in 30 US cities were planned to begin. 8 Recently, Global Exchange has turned its attention to Folgers coffee, owned by Procter and Gamble, and MandM/Mars in an attempt to force them to engage in fairtrade. 9 Combined with these large-scale campaigns, Global Exchange also works with local student and environmental groups to pressure schools and other community institutions to purchase fairtrade goods—essentially participating in what Naomi Klein has termed “local foreign policy” (Klein, 2000, 397-401). These political actions far surpass the intention of surviving in a market niche. Another aspect of fairtrade that challenges the prevailing moral economy of capitalism is its emphasis on solidarity and cooperation over competition and individualism. Despite the immense pressures of the global market to impose the latter pair of values, fairtraders have managed to promote the former in positive and encouraging ways. The actions of the Unión de Comunidades Indígenas de la Región del Istmo (UCIRI), a fairtrade coffee-producing cooperative in Oaxaca, Mexico is telling in this regard. UCIRI has sent technical teams to advise peasant communities who are seeking to engage in fairtrade in the Mexican states of Oaxaca, Puebla and Chiapas, as well as Guatemala and Nicaragua. It has provided ongoing support to other, smaller fairtrade cooperatives by making its

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___________________________________________________________ coffee processing facilities available to them, agreeing to sell their coffee, and recommending them as trading partners to Equal Exchange. The cooperatives that UCIRI have assisted now see themselves as pilot groups for other small cooperatives in their region (Simpson and Rapone, 2000, 397-401). It remains to be seen if fairtrade’s cooperative values will be able to resist the pressures of the global market in the years to come. Against the capitalist logic of globalisation, fairtrade represents a nascent, alternative form of exchange that attempts to place the imperatives of social and ecological justice ahead of the imperatives of the market. Thus, fairtrade is not just a market niche operating within the global market; it is also an attempt to construct an international moral economy that challenges the market and the individualistic, competitive culture of capitalism. Yet, while acknowledging that this is true, we must not lose sight of the limits of the fairtrade moral economy. However radical fairtrade objectives may appear in the era of neoliberalism, the challenge which fairtrade poses to the global capitalist market is severely restricted by its involvement in it. The ultimate dominance of the agents, mechanisms, and structures of global capitalism remain unaltered and, in many ways, unquestioned. The evidence for this assertion is the role of giant Multinational Corporations (MNCs) like Starbucks Coffee, Procter and Gamble, and MandM/Mars in the fairtrade movement and their visions for the future. Fairtraders do not seek to overturn the power of these MNCs, who have been largely responsible for structuring the very unequal global economy, within which peasants and rural workers toil, but to persuade them to play by the rules of fairtrade on the basis of mutual interest. Fairtrade promoters argue that fairtrade is not just a moral choice, but a profitable one for MNCs interested in tapping into ethical consumer demand. As mentioned above, Starbucks has recently heard this message and is now selling fairtrade coffee in its US stores. In this way, the image-conscious MNC has been able to put a stop to bad publicity from Global Exchange and bolster its public reputation as an ethical corporation. The potential benefits for fairtrade producers as a result of this decision are indeed significant as it gives them much greater access to US markets. Nonetheless, it also raises serious concerns about the limits of fairtrade. First, in order to deal with MNCs like Starbucks and gain greater access to Northern markets, fairtraders have limited their social justice goals to the needs of workers and peasants in the underdeveloped South. No criteria of fairness exists to protect workers in advanced capitalist countries. From the perspective of FLO, no difference exists between Starbucks and Equal Exchange, and alternative trade organization with not-for-profit aims and a modest salary range among workers (Bolscher,

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2002). Both are licensed to sell fairtrade goods, even though Starbucks has fiercely resisted unionisation (a requirement for fairtrade workers) at every turn. 10 Moreover, Starbucks’ entry into the fairtrade market poses a significant threat to the viability of such alternative trade organizations that now find themselves up against an enormous competitor with massive financial and marketing resources. In response to this development, fairtrade activist and author Laure Waridel argues that the sidelining of the needs of workers in advanced capitalist countries is acceptable because, “generally speaking, the rich countries where fair-trade coffee is being bought have stronger labor regulations and better social safety nets than most of the countries where coffee is grown” (Waridel, 2002, 105-106). Moreover, the ultimate goal of fairtrade is to get fairtrade products on as many sales shelves as possible, for all businesses big and small. Once this is done, she states, “[we] can decide whether to buy it from a small local company or a bigger one” (Waridel, 2002, 105-106). These assertions reveal a limited understanding of the powerful global market within which fairtrade attempts to impose its moral economy. While workers in the North do indeed have significant benefits over those in the South, these benefits are under constant attack by neoliberal reformers. Every cut to social benefits in the North represents a potential loss of the rights that workers and peasants in the South can demand. In addition, the market is not so neutral a space as Waridel suggests and it is not a simple matter for consumers to choose small local fairtrade companies over Starbucks, with its nearmonopoly dominance of the luxury coffee market and its vast advertising resources. A second concern posed by the involvement of MNCs, such as Starbucks, in the fairtrade movement stems from their motive for participation: profitability—a necessity for the survival of any corporation under the imperatives of global capitalism. Starbucks commitment to fairtrade is contingent on profitability, and, as its decision to participate in fairtrade is purely voluntary, it will almost certainly be revoked if fairtrade fails to bring the anticipated benefits. Workers’ and peasants’ rights are thus hostage to the private decisions of Starbucks management who have the power to continuously reassess if improving peoples’ lives is in the interest of their corporate needs. This stands in stark contrast to the ideals behind the International Labor Organization (ILO) Conventions, a universally recognized code of labour rights that are an oft-ignored legal standard under international law. While fairtrade’s standards are based on these conventions, the original vision of the ILO was to create a compulsory labour code (as opposed to voluntary) that was strictly enforced by public institutions, both nationally and internationally, not one

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___________________________________________________________ driven by the short-sighted, profit-driven whims of MNCs (Klein, 2000, 435-436). Not only does the fairtrade moral economy leave peasants and workers as perpetual hostages to the whims of MNCs, it also leaves them dependent on the individual purchasing decisions of northern consumers. The relationship between northern consumer and southern worker is one in which the latter possesses no power over the former other than that of moral persuasion. While ethical purchases are a matter of survival to fairtrade producers, for consumers they merely may be individual market decisions made alongside of a series of other considerations such as cost, convenience, and image. As such, the gains made by fairtrade are never guaranteed and are vulnerable to a variety of potential events that can have an impact on the fairtrade market, from a decline in disposable income to a consumer backlash against guilt-based products. Gerard Greenfield notes in reflecting on social justice shopping: “If we can only talk about workers’ collective rights and struggles in the context of what people choose to buy as consumers…then it seems we face a greater challenge to building a critical, popular social consciousness than we might imagine” (Ibid., 428) The only way to guarantee that workers’ rights are protected is to have those rights insured by public institutions. Individual ethical choices can only go so far. 3.

Conclusion

Despite its weaknesses, the fairtrade network represents an important force for positive change in the world today. Against the seemingly overwhelming tide of neoliberal structural adjustments and free market dogma, the fairtrade moral economy attempts to assert the principle of peoples’ basic right to live a decent life free from hunger and poverty taking priority over the allegedly natural flows of supply and demand. Yet the risk of remaining an island of justice in a sea of exploitation, or worse, being swallowed up by the sea, is ever present. Competition from mainstream producers throughout the global economy is fierce and the potential obstacles to the growth of the fairtrade market threaten to impose increasing competition within the network. To avoid curtailment of its social and ecological justice goals, fairtrade must continue to expand its efforts to promote solidarity and cooperation and further develop its alternative projects. This may involve re-assessing fairtraders’ eagerness to deal with giant MNCs, or it might involve new and innovate approaches to providing fairtrade producers with greater protection from the market, such as cooperative insurance projects or cooperative property ownership. Whatever direction is chosen, the future

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of fairtrade, if it is to be a promising one, lies in continuing to escalate its efforts to challenge the unchecked capitalist market and its imperatives.

Notes 1

I would like to thank the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada for their research funding. Special thanks to David Friesen, Mark Gabbert, Sabine Neidhardt, Lisa North and, most of all, Megan Dombrowski for their careful readings of my text, helpful criticism, encouragement, and friendship. 2 According to Roger Burbach, globalisation concentrates and integrates capital, commerce, and trade while at the same time “casting off” industries, peoples, and countries that then have become a force for forging alternative economic projects. See Burbach, 1998, 52-65; In a similar vein, Marie Christine Renard argues that the globalisation of the food industry has been characterized by the contradiction between the homogenisation of consumption along with the growth of niche markets for alternative forms of food production to emerge. See Renard, 1999, 484. 3 For a good summary of the principles of fairtrade see David Ransom, 2001, 24-25. Ransom basis his summary on the official principles of Fairtrade Labeling Organizations International (FLO) and the International Federation for Alternative Trade (IFAT), the world’s two main fairtrade umbrella groups. 4 In the early 1990s, Michael Barratt Brown estimated the size of all “alternative trade”—a term which encompasses more than just fairtrade products—on a global scale to be worth around US $50 million worth of exchanges per year. See Barratt Brown, 1993, 23. FLO’s estimate of 220 million Euros converted based on the exchange rate on 1 December 2000 would be over US$190 million. See FLO, 2. 5 Ransom, 49; Simpson and Rapone, 2000, 49-50, 55; Rice, 1998, 52-59; For an excellent account of the social and environmental devastation that the coffee industry, as well as the cotton, banana, and cattle industries, have brought to Central America, one of the world’s key coffee-growing regions, see Faber, 1993. 6 Renard, 485, 489-490, 495-498; Simpson and Rapone, 47, 50, 55; David Ransom is also aware of fairtrade’s position as a niche in the global market. However, he insists that fairtrade cannot survive as a niche and that its message of social and environmental justice is a compelling one

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___________________________________________________________ which promises to bring fairtrade far beyond the limits of a market niche in the future. See Ransom, 28, 124. 7 Global Exchange, “Squeezing Coffee Farmers to the Last Drop,” October 2001, available at http://www.globalexchange.org/economy/coffee. 8 Global Exchange, “Consumers’ Wish for a Proven Alternative to Sweatshop Coffee Will Come True When Starbucks Launches ‘Fairtrade Certified’ Coffee October 4,” 22 September 2000, available at http://www.globalexchange.org/economy/coffee/pressrelease092200.html; Patrick McMahon, “‘Cause coffees’ produce a cup with an agenda,” USA Today, 26 July 2001. 9 Global Exchange, “Kick the Can!!: Protest Exploitation of Farmers Nationwide Day of Action Against Folgers,” 15 December 2001, available at http://www.globalexchange.org/economy/coffee/folgers.html. 10 For examples of Starbucks poor record with unionised labour, see www.mojosdailygrind.com/news/starbucks.html.

References Barratt Brown, M. (1993), Fairtrade: reform and realities in the international trading system. London: Zed Books. Berry, A. (ed.) (1998), Poverty, economic reform, and income distribution in Latin America. Boulder, Col: Lynne Rienner. Blowfield, M. (1999), ‘Ethical trade: a review of developments and issues’, Third World Quarterly, 20, (4): 753-770. Bolscher, H. (director of Max Havelaar, the Netherlands). Interview by author. Utrecht, the Netherlands, 18 February 2002. Burbach, R. (1998), ‘The (un)defining of postmodern Marxism: on smashing modernization and narrating new social and economic actors’, Rethinking Marxism, 10 (1) (Spring): 52-65. Elson, D. (1988), ‘Market socialism or socialization of the market?’ New left review, 172 (November-December): 1-44.

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Faber, D. (1993), Environment under fire: imperialism and the ecological crisis in Central America. New York: Monthly Review Press. Fairtrade Labeling Organizations International (FLO). (2001), Report 2000-2001: developing fairtrade’s labelling. Bonn: FLO. Foster, J. B. (1994), The vulnerable planet: a short economic history of the environment. New York: Monthly Review Press. Klein, N. (2000), No logo: taking aim at the brand bullies. Toronto: Vintage Canada. McNally, D. (1993), Against the market: political economy, market socialism and the Marxist critique. London: Verso. Meiksins Wood, E. (1999), The origin of capitalism. New York: Monthly Review Press. Ransom, D. (2001), The no-nonsense guide to fairtrade, Toronto: New Internationalist and Between The Lines. Renard, M. C. (1999), ‘The Interstices of Globalization: The Example of Fair Coffee’, Sociologia ruralis, 39 (4): 484-500. Rice, R. (1998), ‘A rich brew from the shade’, in Américas, 50 (2): 52-59. Simpson, C. R., and Rapone, A. (2000), ‘Community development from the ground up: social-justice coffee’, in Human ecology review, 7 (1): 4657. Thompson, E.P. (1971), ‘The moral economy of the English crowd in the eighteenth century’, Past and Present, 5 (February): 75-136. Waridel, L. (2002), Coffee with pleasure: just Java and world trade. Montreal: Black Rose Books.

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Online References Global Exchange: www.globalexchange.org/economy/coffee. Mojos Daily Grind: www.mojosdailygrind.com/news/starbucks.html.

Law, Civil Society and Transnational Environmental Advocacy Networks

Paul Street

The United Nations once dealt only with Governments. By now we know that peace and prosperity cannot be achieved without partnerships involving governments, international organizations, the business community and civil society. In today's world, we depend on each other.” 1 This chapter briefly examines the claims that the increased participation of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) within inter-governmental and treaty based institutions fosters global environmental justice by increasing their transparency and democratic accountability. There is no doubt that NGOs form extensive environmental advocacy networks; often play avital role in the implementation of environmental law and policy and at times may be the only repositories of expertise on particular issues and can be representative of community interests. The recognition that NGOs already play an important role in environmental decision making, and that there is also plenty of room for increasing their involvement is not however equivocal with suggesting that their increased participation results in greater democratic accountability and transparency of international and domestic legal institutions. Although in a Gramscian sense the terms civil society and nongovernmental would appear to be equivocal, in both legal and in current linguistic usage, the term NGO encapsulates a far wider category than that which would include only those associations which might describe themselves as civil society organisations. As such the concepts of NGOs and civil society organisations are not interchangeable. Before taking into account the democratic deficit inherent in NGOs and the packaged preferences they represent; or the inequality of financial resources available to NGOs that are a necessary component for transitional activism; or the dubious claim that the democratic legitimacy of NGOs derives from their status as a part of civil society, it is worth acknowledging that the manner in which NGOs are recognised by legal institutions creates its own processes of exclusion that could result in those organisations which are perhaps most directly involved in particular

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_________________________________________________ issues not being able to gain access to the decision making bodies concerned. At the same time the legal rules as currently developed, or indeed that have been proposed, could also end up producing a further additional filter through which peoples voices might strain to be heard. Therefore while accepting that there is a need to address the democratic deficit in environmental decision making at domestic, national and international levels, simply increasing the participation of NGOs in the decision making process may not bring the gains that people may expect. In the rest of this chapter therefore I consider the potential future possibilities available to NGOs to influence and participate in the work of international institutions. The chapter not only begins to assess the potential transformative nature of civil society organisations in seeking to achieve environmental justice, global or otherwise, but also examines some of the problems surrounding NGOs, transnational environmental advocacy networks and civil society. 1.

NGOs and Global Civil Society

The involvement of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) within international law has a history that extends back for over 200 years (Charnovitz, 1997). Throughout the nineteenth century the growth of private international unions whose interest and membership extended beyond the borders of one nation, whose objectives were not for profit and who possessed some form of permanent organ, gradually increased. While some of these private associations eventually evolved into public international organisations, others retained their non-governmental status so that by 1910, and the formation of the Union of International Associations, the Annuaire de la Vie Internationale listed 176 nongovernmental and 37 intergovernmental organisations. However, in more recent years NGOs have continued their increasing proliferation far more dramatically, a fact testified to in the 36th edition of the Yearbook of International Organisations, which lists 17,077 conventional international NGOs 2 and 1,839 intergovernmental organisations. However, these figures do little justice to estimates that in the US alone there are around 2 million NGOs, of which 70% are under 30 years old, or that in India there are thought to be about 1 million NGOs (Economist,1999). Strictly speaking NGOs have no international legal personality being neither states, nor ‘treaty based organisations’ constituted by international agreements. 3 Nevertheless the undeniable influence of NGOs in international law in general, and international environmental law in particular, remains highly visible (Clark, 1995; Waak, 1995; Tarlock,

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_________________________________________________ 1992). NGO’s monitor state compliance with international agreements (Cameron 1996) advocate new policy agendas (Hudson, 2001) as well as organising parallel summits to many major conferences (Pianta, 2001). However, as we shall see below, not only have NGOs gained the right, in some jurisdictions, to challenge the actions of governments in the courts, but they also increasingly participate in the work of international legal organisations beyond their roles as observers and lobbyists (Raustalia, 1997; Bowman, 1999). We instinctively tend to associate the term NGO with large international non-profit organisations such as Greenpeace, WWF, or Amnesty International. However, NGOs, as a category, encompass a far wider ranging and diverse set of associations than initially springs to mind. An organisation such as the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), for example, which has a longer history than Greenpeace, WWF, or Amnesty, is still an NGO even though it represents business interests. Similarly the European Services Forum, or the United States Council for International Business both qualify as NGOs as do other not for profit organisations such as the International Olympic Committee (IOC), or the International Athletic Federation (IAF). Non-Governmental organisations do not fall into one category but a number of different sub categories. There are INGOs (International NGOs), BINGOs (Business Interest NGOs), PINGOs (Public Interest NGOs), NGDOs (Development NGOs) and a potential host of others. Alternatively we might choose to categorise NGOs as Multinational Civil Society Organisations, National Civil Society Organisations, Multinational Trade Associations, National Trade Associations, Multinational Employees Confederations, National Employees Confederations and at least one further category which would include the IOC and IAF that we might call international regulatory bodies. The wider point here is that the label NGO covers a diverse range of actors that extends beyond civil society organisations. At the same time there is an increasing tendency to equate the growing number of NGOs with the existence and growth of a global civil society, to the extent that the terms have become merged in what is often presented as a disjuncture with past transnational practices and the emergence of a new global political project. As Anheier et al observe: One thing that helps to explain the present universal popularity of civil society is its very fuzziness: it can be all things to all people. In particular, there is a conflation of an empirical category, which is often referred to as NGOs or the

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_________________________________________________ non-profit or voluntary sector, with a political project. In the first meaning it is simply a label for something that is out there, a category that is both non-profit and non governmental. On the other hand, in the way the central Europeans and Latin Americans were using it, it is more a political project, a sphere through which to resist, pressure, or influence the state and increasingly also the market (Anheier et al., 2001, 15) This conflation of an emerging civil society with the increasing presence of NGOs is problematic for a number of reasons, not least because NGOs are not a recent phenomenon but one whose history extends over 200 years. More importantly, the emergence of a global civil society is often suggested as something that is in opposition to an ongoing process of globalisation that, even amongst its critics, is all too often reduced to a predominant concern with multinational corporations, foreign direct investment (FDI), international monetary flows, and the organisation of international business and financial structures (Held et al, 1999; Hirst and Thompson, 1999; Castells, 1996). As we saw above some business associations are also NGOs even though they engage in the promotion of transnational business interests and practices. In other words many NGOs are engaged in the very practices of globalisation against which global civil society is said to be opposed, their ends running contrary to the means by which global civil society often defines itself. At one level all that I am trying to suggest is that there is nothing innately civil about NGOs. That while those organisations that characterise themselves as being part of global civil society operate through transnational networks outside the boundaries of governmental structures, not all organisations that structure themselves in the same way, would be characterised as part of global civil society. This raises a number of fundamental questions regarding the calls for increased participation by NGOs in the work of international governmental organisations. However, before considering these further I want to briefly turn in more detail to this fuzzy concept of global civil society by examining the following extract from John Keane. [G]lobal civil society refers to the contemporary thickening and stretching of networks of socio economic institutions across borders to all four corners of the earth, such that the peaceful or ‘civil’ effects of these non governmental networks are felt everywhere … global civil society is a vast interconnected, and

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_________________________________________________ multi layered social space that comprises many hundreds of thousands of self directing or non governmental institutions and ways of life … all of them have at least one thing in common: across vast geographic distances and despite barriers of time they deliberately, organise themselves and conduct their social activities, business and politics outside the boundaries of governmental structures, with a minimum of violence and a maximum of respect for the principle of civilised power sharing among different ways of life (Keane, 2001, 23-24). As a summary of the nature of global civil society, Keane’s description is a fair one, raising three points that I would like to deal with here. The first is that like theories of globalisation, the concept of global civil society is extremely modern in its universalist claims to be felt everywhere. While the social may well consist of and be defined by one’s place within multiple overlapping networks, the topological nature of these is such, that those within the network are brought close together while those outside may be infinitely separated (Castells, 1996: 470; Thrift, 1996; Mol and Law, 1994; Law, 1994). In other words while a governing characteristic of all social life may well be our embodiment in social networks, individual networks themselves create their own boundaries and borders. They are thus never global or universal, but can only ever operate locally; these networks are always more or less long and more or less connected (Latour, 1993) networks that produce their own timings and spacings. Secondly, as noted above, the organisational content that is meant to set civil society apart has the same characteristics as those to be found within all social organisations. The category of organisations that operate transnationally outside the structures of government includes multinational enterprises and businesses associations an observation unsurprising to many who would see these extended transnational networks as an inevitable characteristic feature of late capitalism. Indeed Gramsci’s own concept of civil society would have included these enterprises and associations, civil society being simply “the ensemble of organisms commonly called private” (Gramsci, 1971,12) as opposed to political society or, the state. Thirdly, the supposed normative content of global civil society is non-violent, democratic and environmental friendly, oriented towards improving the substantive inequities of poor and marginalized communities, indeed these values are championed as the counterbalance to global capitalism (Devetak and Higgot, 1999). However, the multinational

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_________________________________________________ enterprises and international institutions against which civil society organisations oppose themselves would often agree with these very same principles. The WTO and World Bank also see their fundamental role as the alleviation of poverty, while Monsanto might claim that the purpose of GM crops is the eradication of hunger in an environmentally sustainable manner. Although there is an empirical category of organisations that claim to form global civil society, (many of whose goals I would share), global civil society is not a shared reality. Indeed the oversimplifications that often accompany the notion; simplifications that frequently resort to a very bowdlerised pairing of – hegemonic globalisation bad / subaltern global civil society good - are highly problematic, especially when on this basis civil society organisations claim legitimacy to speak for, THE south, or THE environment. Social life remains as always complex. On the one hand the constituency and membership of NGOs are such that someone who works for a life science company may also be a member of Greenpeace. As, Spiro (1996) observes, individual members of an NGO may disagree with some of the policies pursued by it, but in the same manner as political parties and other institutions, large NGOs enjoy the benefits of packaged preferences (Macey, 1994). On the other hand simply because a Toronto based environmental NGO has an office in Delhi, this does not automatically give it a more legitimate voice than the Indian government or an NGO in Bangalore, to speak on behalf of the environment in India. Indeed our failure to recognise this fact runs the risk of repeating the imperialism of yesteryear. I am not proposing a relativist stance here; on the contrary I believe it necessary to speak out against the substantive material inequalities of communities both within and outside the Two Thirds World. However, we need to remain aware that simply because an association claims to be a civil society organisation, this provides it with no further inherent legitimacy than any other organisation or mediating institution. 2.

The Legal Capacity and Standing of NGOs

As legal persons in the countries in which they are constituted, NGOs possess the capacity to seek legal remedies from the courts. However, the extent to which NGOs will have the requisite locus standi (standing) to pursue claims in the public interest are limited by the specific jurisdictions of individual states. In the UK, for example, there is a firm distinction drawn between the ability of NGOs to pursue remedies in public law and their ability to pursue an action in private law.

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_________________________________________________ In certain circumstances in the UK, 4 NGOs possess the capacity to seek a judicial review of the decisions of Ministers, government officials and other public bodies. For example, in R v. Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, ex parte World Development Movement Ltd., 5 the WDM sought to challenge the approval by the then Foreign Secretary of a grant for the Pergau dam scheme in Malaysia. Section 1 of the Overseas Development and Co-operation Act 1980 gives the Secretary of State the power to grant aid for the purpose of promoting the development of a country. In this case the Foreign Secretary took his decision to grant aid for the Pergau Dam despite the advice of officials from the Overseas Development Administration that the project was uneconomic. The WDM sought to argue that overseas aid granted under s.1 of the 1980 Act must promote economically sound development and that therefore in this instance, the Foreign Secretary had unlawfully acted beyond his powers. Before this argument could even be considered, the WDM had to show they were in possession of sufficient standing, or interest, in the case. One argument raised by counsel for the WDM and accepted by Rose LJ in his judgment for recognising the standing of the WDM was that if the applicants could not challenge the Secretary of State’s decision then there would be no one else who could, “as neither a government nor citizen of a foreign country denied aid is, in practical terms, likely to be able to bring such a challenge.” Rose LJ also took time to consider the nature of the WDM itself concluding that the “present applicants, with their national and international expertise and interest in promoting and protecting aid to underdeveloped nations, should have standing in the present application.” In other words UK courts accept that there are times when NGOs that possess legal personality in the UK might be the best-placed, if not the only parties, capable of challenging the legality of decisions made by UK public officials. However, it is worth noting that standing would not be granted by the courts to an NGO from another country, in this case for example from Malaysia, if they were not legally constituted in the UK. Although public law remedies may be available to NGOs in the UK, their position in private law is not so positive. To undertake an action in private nuisance, for example, it is necessary to possess an interest in a property that is directly affected. 6 Similarly in relation to the tort of negligence, case law requires that there be a relationship of sufficient proximity between plaintiff and defendant such that an NGO would be considered too remote to succeed unless they had directly suffered some loss through the actions of those from whom they sought a remedy.

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_________________________________________________ Outside the UK attempts have been made to overcome some of the difficulties that face NGOs wishing to bring a civil law case, that lessen the distinction somewhat between private and public law. In the Netherlands, NGOs already possess standing in civil environmental cases provided they can demonstrate a special interest in environmental protection, they are considered, in legal terms, to be in possession of an individual interest, rather than a public one. This fiction allows an NGO to pursue a civil law action without, for example, possessing rights in property to which damage has occurred (Betlem, 1995). Of potentially wider significance, Article 18(1) of The European Council’s 1993 Convention On Civil Liability For Damage Resulting From Activities Dangerous To The Environment, provides that an association or foundation whose aims are “the protection of the environment” 7 should be able to seek a number of private law remedies. 8 However, the convention has been signed by only 9 of the 43 member states (Cyprus, Finland, Greece, Iceland, Italy, Liechtenstein, Luxemburg, Netherlands, Portugal) and before entering into force requires 3 ratifications, of which none have so far been forthcoming. Perhaps more promising are recent developments within the European Union, where the European Commission in its White Paper on Environmental Liability 9 (COM (2000) 66 final) is now pursuing a similar move towards standing for NGOs in civil cases, though somewhat more limited in scope than those currently in place in the Netherlands. The paper proposes that although states would possess the primary duty towards the protection of the environment in relation to “damage to biodiversity” and “damage in the form of contamination of sites,” (COM (2000) 66 final p.22 para. 4.7.1) where urgent action was needed (COM (2000) 66 final p.22 para 4.7.2) or when states had failed to act (COM (2000) 66 final p.22 para 4.7.1) then “public interest groups promoting environmental protection (and meeting relevant requirements under national law)” (COM (2000) 66 final p.22 para 4.7.1) should be able to seek civil remedies. Even if individual jurisdictions extend standing to NGOs in public or civil law cases, there still remains the problem that NGOs need to be legally constituted in the relevant jurisdiction in order to recognised by the court as having the requisite locus standi. Therefore although NGOs seek to be transnational actors, their ability to act transnationally within national legal frameworks is limited by their size and structure. Attempts to develop international rules governing the relationship between states and NGOs, or at least between states and international nonprofit associations, extend back to 1910 when a number of international

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_________________________________________________ meetings and associations first examined the issue. During this year the possibility of drawing up future supranational rules relating to non-profit associations were discussed by the 1st World Congress of International Associations; the International Law Association; the 5th Session of the International Association of Academies and the 1910 Paris session of the Institute of International Law (UIA 1988: Appendix 4.1). A number of draft conventions governing the activities of international NGOs were proposed from 1912 onwards with perhaps one of the most interesting being that submitted to the Director General of UNESCO in May 1959 by the Union of International Associations. This Draft Convention Aiming At Facilitating The Work of International Non-Governmental Organizations was in turn considered by the Administrative Committee on Coordination of the Specialized Agencies of the United Nations that concluded there was little possibility of member states accepting it (UIA 1988: Appendix 4.10). In more recent years, limited progress has been achieved through the adoption of the Council of Europe’s 1986 European Convention on the Recognition of the Legal Personality of International Non-Governmental Organisations. As the name suggests, the Convention attempts to provide mutual rules and conditions amongst members for the recognition of the legal personality and capacity of international NGOs. The Convention came into force on the 1st of January 1991 following ratification by three member states. However only 9 of the 43 states within the Council of Europe have both signed and ratified the Convention (Austria, Belgium, France, Greece, Portugal, Slovenia, Switzerland, Macedonia, UK) with one country (Cyprus) having signed but not ratified it. While the Preamble recognises the valuable contribution that NGOs can make to society, for an NGO to be covered by the Convention it must by virtue of Article 1 “(a) have a non profit making aim of international utility; (b) have been established by an instrument governed by the internal law of a party; (c) carry on its activities with effect in at least two States; (d) have their statutory office in the territory of a Party and the central management and control in the territory of that Party or of another Party.” Article 2 governs the extent of an NGO's legal personality and capacity making this dependent on the law of the State in which the statutory office of the NGO is situated. This means that an NGO will have the same legal capacity and personality in all the contracting States as that in the State in which its statutory office is located. However these rights are not unlimited for, while an NGO may under the convention possess legal capacity in all the contracting States, States may limit, restrict and

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_________________________________________________ provide special procedures in relation to the exercise of those rights where they are in the public interest. Article 4 then sets out the circumstances in which a party may refuse recognition to an NGO. We have seen NGOs that might be categorised as environmental civil society organisations, posses in a number of national jurisdictions and in strictly defined situations, the capacity (standing) to challenge the implementation of environmental law. The possible role of NGOs in international law is currently limited by the notion that, with the possible exception of the International Committee of the Red Cross, 10 they have no international legal personality (Norwort, 1999; Hobe, 1997). Thus NGOs do not, for the most part, 11 have the ability to challenge the implementation of international agreements in the appropriate relevant dispute resolution bodies. Nor, do they possess a role within the two most important organs of the United Nations the General Assembly and the Security Council. 3.

NGO Advocacy within International Organisations

Over the past two decades NGOs have increasingly oriented themselves towards ever-wider advocacy aiming to change the policies and practices of international organisations, governments, governmental departments, multinational enterprises, individuals and even other NGOs (Hudson, 2001). As a part of this process civil society organisations have also called for access to the decision making process of institutions such as the UN and WTO arguing that this would bring about increased transparency and greater democracy. The dominant Westphalian paradigm that has held sway within international jurisprudence since 1648, is however both state-centred and positivist, casting sovereign nations as the “principal dramatis personae on the international scene.” (Cassese, 1986, 9). The result is that NGOs are considered to have no international legal personality, and are therefore for the most part excluded from directly participating in what are thought of as inter-nation(al) organisations. The significance of NGOs to the international community is to some extent recognised within the United Nations by Article 71 of the UN Charter, which provides that “the Economic and Social Council may make suitable arrangements for consultation with non-governmental organizations which are concerned with matters within its competence.” The rights and privileges granted to NGOs under Article 71 are currently governed by ECOSOC resolution E/1996/31, which creates three tiers of consultative status. Firstly organizations that “have substantive and

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_________________________________________________ sustained contributions to make to the achievement of the objectives of the United Nations” (para 22) and are ”closely involved with the economic and social life of the peoples of the areas they represent and whose membership, which should be considerable, is broadly representative of major segments of society in a large number of countries in different regions of the world” (para22) may be awarded general consultative status. Secondly, those NGOs that “have a special competence in, and are concerned specifically with, only a few of the fields of activity covered by the ECOSOC" hold special consultative status. Thirdly organizations included on a roster that "can make occasional and useful contributions to the work of ECOSOC or its subsidiary bodies." It is important to understand the distinction between consultation and participation created by articles 69, 70 and 71 of the UN Charter. Although the 1996 ECOSOC resolution (E/1999/36) provides that organizations in general consultative status can submit written statements to the Council (para 30) and that they “may propose … [to] place items of special interest to the organizations in the provisional agenda of the Council.” (para 28) they have no rights as such. Organisations with general consultative status cannot by right make oral presentations to the Council but can do so only if the Council Committee on NonGovernmental Organizations proposes that they speak and the Council approves the committees decision. Similarly while organisations with general consultative status can propose that items be placed on the agenda, access is controlled by the Council Committee on Non-Governmental Organizations to whom the proposal is made and who may request the Secretary General to place the item on the agenda (para 32). Written statements may also be submitted to the ECOSOC Council by organisations with special consultative status where they have a special competence (para29) and they may ask to make oral presentations within their field of interest on the same terms as organisations with general status. NGOs can play a similar role in relation to the commissions and other subsidiary bodies of ECOSOC, although those with general consultative status are able to place items on the relevant agendas, and organisations on the roster, may if requested, be allowed to make an oral presentation. These privileges, such as they are, can hardly be considered as rights of participation in the workings of the UN, indeed even the granting of observer status does little but provide a limited veneer of transparency. This is even more apparent when one takes into account that while the UN currently provides different degrees of accreditation for 2,091 NGOs, only 122 of these have general consultative status. Both

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_________________________________________________ figures being just a fraction of the international NGOs listed in the Yearbook of International Organizations, let alone the millions of local NGOs that exist worldwide. Before its inception in 1995, NGOs increasingly sought to affect change on the policies and workings of the World Trade Organization (WTO). Although Article V.2 of the Marakesh Agreement establishing the WTO provides for the General Council “to make appropriate arrangements for consultation and cooperation with non-governmental organizations concerned with matters related to those of the WTO,” as the Guidelines For Arrangements On Relations With Non-Governmental Organizations 12 observe, the nature of the WTO, as well as the lack of international legal personality of NGOs, are such as to prevent their direct participation in its decision making processes. 13 Thus, as well as being prevented from participating in the decision making process, NGOs are also prevented from either bringing a case, or from becoming a third party to a case, within the WTO’s dispute settlement body (DSB). In addition to direct consultations outside any WTO proceedings with the governments involved, one avenue that is open, or at least potentially open to NGOs in order to get their voices heard in WTO dispute settlement proceedings, is to file an amicus curaie 14 brief (Umbricht, 2001; Marceau and Stilwell, 2001; Reinisch and Irgel, 2001). Article 13 (1) and (2) of the Dispute Settlement Understanding (DSU) provides panels with the right to seek information or technical advice from “any individual,” “body,” or “relevant source,“ which they may deem appropriate. In the US Shrimp/Turtle 15 case, the appellate body of the DSB considered the application of Article 13 in relation to the admissibility of two categories of briefs. The first category related to three sets of briefs submitted by NGOs but attached to the US submission, 16 the second related to two unsolicited briefs that had originally been submitted to the panel first hearing the case. Regarding the first category, the Appellate Body considered that the attachment to the submission “renders that material at least prima facie an integral part of that participant's submission” (US Shrimp/Turtle para. 89). As such the NGO material was therefore admissible. In relation to the two submissions from the Centre for International Environmental Law (CIEL) and the Center for Marine Conservation that had originally been submitted to the panel, the Appellate Body turned to Article 13 of the DSU stating that panel had the right to seek or not to seek information from any source (para104). And, stated in addition that “a panel has the discretionary authority either to accept and consider or to reject information and advice submitted to it, whether requested by a panel or not. The fact that a panel may, motu

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_________________________________________________ propri, have initiated the request for information does not, by itself, bind the panel to accept and consider the information which is actually submitted.” (US Shrimp/Turtle para.108). A number of unsolicited amicus briefs were subsequently submitted to five WTO panels before the end of 2000 (Marceau and Stillwell, 2001). However, in November 2000 another twist occurred in the story when the Appellate Body in the EC – Asbestos case 17 took what appeared to both NGOs and member states, as the unprecedented action of requesting amicus briefs (Bridges Weekly Trade News Digest, 4) through the adoption and publication of an “additional procedure” (1 WT/DS135/9) by which NGOs could file a request to submit a brief to the Appellate Body. In fact the Appellate Body had already received 13 unsolicited briefs, which it returned to the parties informing them of the date by which they could file a request for leave to submit a brief. The Appellate Body subsequently received 17 applications to file briefs although only 11 were received in time. 18 It then chose to deny leave to file written briefs to all 11 of the applicants. 19 Perhaps, most interestingly, was the response by many of the Two Thirds World countries that called a meeting of the WTO General Council to discuss the issue. 20 During the discussion Egypt on behalf of the Informal Group of Developing Countries, together with India and others, made a number of comments that took issue with what appeared to them the decision of the Appellate Body to request the filing of amicus briefs. Included amongst these comments were the observations that not only did amicus briefs provide NGOs with rights, in relation to disputes, that were not available to the members of the WTO, but also that the primary beneficiaries of such rights would be NGOs who had the time, money and ability to access the WTO, that is international NGOs that were for the most part based in northern developed countries, to the disadvantage of those based in the Two Thirds World. Before leaving the WTO behind, it is worth mentioning one notable example of NGO participation in the work of the WTO that highlights the difficulties faced not only by NGOs but also countries from the Two Thirds World as well. Such is the nature of Sierra Leone’s financial position, that it came to an agreement with the London based NGO the Foundation for International Environmental Law and Development (FIELD), which is also attached to London University, to represent Sierra Leone within the WTO Committee on Trade and Environment. Sierra Leone had to take this course of action because its lack of resources meant that it could not keep a permanent representative

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_________________________________________________ in Geneva. In return FIELD gained access to meetings of the CTE (Shaffer, 2001). In other international fora, still further opportunities have emerged for the involvement of NGOs that not only further bring into question the Westphalian model of international law, but again demonstrate one of the legitimate roles that NGOs can play transnationally. In a number of environmental treaty regimes, NGOs are entitled to engage in more active direct participation in the work of the Treaty’s Secretariats work (Raustiala 1997) that goes beyond mere observer status. For example not only do Article 7 of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and Article 4 of the International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling provide for both observer status and the active participation of NGOs, but in addition the fourth conference of the parties to the 1979 Bonn Convention on The Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals, specifically called on parties to consult and share information with NGOs as well as inviting them to participate in further agreements under the convention. The contributions of the IUCN, IWRB, ICBP and WWF have been formally recognised by the parties to the 1971 Ramsar Convention on Wetlands while, the WWF, amongst other NGOs, played a significant role in upgrading the African elephant to Appendix 1 of the 1973 Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITEs) (Sands and Bedecarre, 1990; Princen, 1995) the work of the CITEs secretariat in ensuring implementation and compliance with the Convention is aided by TRAFFIC an NGO formed by two other NGOs, WWF and the IUCN. In addition to the advocacy work they undertake, it should not be forgotten that NGOs are also often both the conduit for funds and the means for governmental and international governmental organisations to implement policies on the ground. Fifty per-cent of World Bank development projects now take place through direct NGO participation. The UNDP/UNEP Global Environment Facility at the World Bank, supports projects in four areas, biodiversity, climate change, the phasing out of ozone depleting substances and the protection of international waters, and it currently finances 150 NGO led projects with the Small Grants Programme that provides more than 1,200 NGO-executed programmes. 4.

Conclusion There can be no doubt that NGOs can and do have a valuable transnational role to play. Nor, can there be any doubt that the ability of

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_________________________________________________ NGOs to participate further in the workings of international governmental institutions, or treaty based organisations, is limited by the dominant Westphalian paradigm that constructs international law as the domain of sovereign nations. Within this model of international order, the proper role of advocacy groups is thought to be one that is aimed towards influencing and participating in the democratic process of sovereign nations and not intergovernmental institutions. As the WTO guidelines on consultation with NGOs state, “closer consultation and cooperation with NGOs can … be met constructively through appropriate processes at the national level where lies primary responsibility for taking into account the different elements of public interest which are brought to bear on trade policymaking” (para 6). The international advocacy role of NGOs both within and outside of international institutions, together with the actions of other transnational actors, challenges the orthodoxy of this state-centred model of international order (Harding, 2001; Risse-Kappen, 1995; Allott, 1990). However, although NGOs have become participant observers in a number of international legal fora, and, can be described empirically as transnational actors that are engaging in the transformation of international and national legal and political systems, it does not follow that because the statist, positivist, model of international order is mythical, that NGOs should therefore be given further rights to participate in intergovernmental organisations. The legitimacy of organisations to speak not only on behalf of their constituency but also to engage actively in the workings of international institutions cannot be based solely on the tenuous claim that NGOs are somehow more democratic than nation states. Similarly, increasing the participation of NGOs in international institutions would, by definition, also increase access for business associations, a situation that most civil society organisations would find unpalatable. Just as unpalatable is the suggestion that we can somehow draw a distinction between those NGOs which represent, for example, business associations and those which label themselves a part of global civil society, permitting the latter greater access to institutions at local, national and international levels simply on the basis of their own claims to democratic legitimacy. It would also seem important to consider which NGOs might benefit from increased access to international institutions such as the UN, the WTO and other international treaty organisations. As it stands those International NGOs who already have access to these institutions are predominately drawn from the United States and Europe (Shaffer, 2001). Not all NGOs are equal, it is the large international NGOs, which maintain staff, circulate publications, hold colloquia, and effectively lobby in and

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_________________________________________________ around Geneva and New York that can often speak with the loudest voice. While there can be no doubting the power of transnational advocacy groups to give voice to marginalized communities through the networks that they build, there can also be a representational politics at work that is colonial and orientalist (Radcliffe, 2001). The agenda of INGOs does not necessarily reflect the agenda or interests of NGOs, Governments or the peoples of the Two Thirds World. The attempts that have so far been made towards the international recognition of NGOs have focused on International NGOs and not those national or sub-national NGOs that perhaps represent people more directly. What is so representative or accountable about an NGO consisting of a handful of lawyers and support staff that would nevertheless qualify as an international NGO were they to have offices in more than one country? Why should such an NGO be given recognition or allowed to participate in the workings of international institutions when an NGO with only a national presence but directly representing hundreds of thousands of people would not? It is important that we do not get too carried away with the idea of the global and the notion of a global civil society. We must remember that the processes often associated with civil society are multi-layered, containing a wide range of meanings and possible responses. It is important to focus on providing a means for peoples and organisations within the Two Thirds World to have their own voices heard, not necessarily to have them negotiated and translated by transnational actors speaking for THE South. If we truly aim to further environmental justice, and, increase global citizenship then the peoples of the Two Thirds World must be heard in their own voices.

Notes 1

Kofi Annan - Address to the World Economic Forum, Davos, Switzerland, 31st Jan 1998 UN SG/SM/6448. 2 These figures are taken from the 1999/2000 edition and do not include inactive, recent, subsidiary, or national organisations nor religious orders and secular institutes or autonomous conference series which would boost the figure to 43, 958. One other important point is that it does not include NGOs that only operate in one country. 3 On the legal personality of international organisations see Sands and Klein, 2001.

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_________________________________________________ 4

In addition to the question of standing considered here, cases must for example be brought in a timely fashion. 5 [1995] 1 All ER 611, [1995] 1 WLR 386. This case was not the first to recognise the standing of an NGO in an application for Judicial Review, see also R v. Secretary of State for Social Services, ex p Child Poverty Action Group [1989] 1 All ER 1047, [1990] 2 QB 540, where the applicants were held to have a sufficient standing and R v. Inspectorate of Pollution, ex p Greenpeace Ltd (No 2) [1994] 4 All ER 329. Perhaps the most important cases that provide the framework for assessing whether an organisation may achieve standing in judicial review cases in the UK are IRC v. National Federation of Self-Employed and Small Businesses Ltd [1981] 2 All ER 93, [1982] AC 617 and R. Secretary of State for the Environment, ex parte Rose Theatre Trust Co. [1990] 1 ALL ER 754 where the trust were not considered as having sufficient standing. See also R v. N. Somerset District Council, ex parte Garnett [1998] Env LR 91 and R v. Somerset County Council, ex parte Dixon [1998] Env LR 111. In relation to standing in the EU, see Case C-321/95 P Stichting Greenpeace Council (Greenpeace International) v. Commission [1998] ECR I-1651, {1998] 3 CMLR 1, where Greenpeace and some local residents of the Canary Islands were denied standing to challenge European Commission funding for a power station. 6 See Hunter v. Canary Wharf Ltd. [1997] 2 WLR 684. 7 This is further qualified by the requirement that the association “complies with any further conditions of internal law of the Party where the request is submitted.” Although provision is made in the Convention under Article 18(5) for parties to reciprocally recognise associations or foundations legally constituted in the territory of another party to the convention. 8 The remedies listed under article 18(1) are “(a) the prohibition of a dangerous activity which is unlawful and poses a grave threat of damage to the environment; (b) that the operator be ordered to take measures to prevent an incident or damage; (c) that the operator be ordered to take measures, after an incident, to prevent damage; or (d) that the operator be ordered to take measures of reinstatement.” 9 For an overview of the proposals see Wilde, 2001. 10 The Geneva Convention provides The Red Cross with a number of functions 11 Under Article 24 of the Constitution of the International Labour Organisation Law (ILO) NGOs, in the form of labour unions and business associations, are provided with the ability to file complaints concerning treaty violations by ILO Member States. Indeed as Nowrot, 1999: 628,

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_________________________________________________ comments “even the structure of the ILO itself, with representatives of governments, labour unions, and business associations as formal participants in an equal division, reflects a strong and unique institutionalised position for NGOs in an international organization and in the operation of an international legal regime.” 12 Adopted by the General Council on 18th July 1996 WT/L/162 13 Paragraph 6 states that WTO “Members have pointed to the special character of the WTO, which is both a legally binding intergovernmental treaty of rights and obligations among its members and a forum for negotiations. As a result of extensive discussions, there is currently a broadly held view that it would not be possible for NGOs to be directly involved in the work of the WTO or its meetings.” WT/L/162. For an early article advocating increased access for NGOs within the WTO see Charnovitz, 1996. 14 Amici curiae (friends of the court) briefs are a means by which a person who has no direct interest in a legal dispute can impart additional facts or legal opinions to the court in a written document. On their role generally within international law and the International Court of Justice (ICJ) see Shelton (1994). 15 United States - Import Prohibition Of Certain Shrimp And Shrimp Products WT/DS58/AB/R 16 The briefs attached to the US submission were written by - the Earth Island Institute; the Humane Society of the United States and the Sierra Club; the Center for International Environmental Law ("CIEL"); the Centre for Marine Conservation; the Environmental Foundation Ltd.; the Mangrove Action Project; the Philippine Ecological Network; Red Nacional de Accion Ecologica; and Sobrevivencia; and the Worldwide Fund for Nature and the Foundation for International Environmental Law and Development. 17 European Communities – Measures Affecting Asbestos And AsbestosContaining Products WT/DS135/AB/R 18 A further brief by FIELD was submitted on 6th February 2001 that was also rejected by the Appellate Body. 19 See European Communities – Measures Affecting Asbestos And Asbestos-Containing Products WT/DS135/AB/R para. 50-57 20 see the minutes of the meeting contained within WT/GC/M/60.

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_________________________________________________ References Anheier, H., M. Glasius and M. Kaldor (2001), ‘Introducing global civil society’, in: Anheier, H., Glasius, M., and Kaldor, M., (eds.) Global civil society 2001. (Oxford: Oxford University Press). 3-22. Allott, P. (1990), Eunomia: new world order for a new world order. Oxford: OxfordUniversity Press. Betlem, G. (1995), ‘Standing for ecosystems – going Dutch’, Cambridge law journal, 54(1): 153-170 Bowman, M.J., (1999), ‘International treaties and the global protection of birds part II’, Journal of environmental law, 11(2): 281-300. Cameron, J. (1996), ‘Compliance, citizens and NGOs’ in: J. Cameron, J. Werksman, and P. Roderick (eds.) Improving compliance with international environmental law. London: Earthscan. 29-42 Cassese, A. (1986), International law in a divided world. Oxford: Clarendon. Castells, M. (1996), The rise of the network society: Vol.1 the information age: economy society and culture. Oxford: Blackwell. Charnovitz, S. (1996), ‘Participation of Nongovernmental Organizations in the World Trade Organization’, University of Pennsylvania journal of international economic law, 17(1): 331-357. Charnovitz, S. (1997), ‘Two centuries of participation: NGOs and international governance’, Michigan journal of international law, 18(2): 183-286. Clark, A.M. (1995), ‘Non Governmental Organisations and their influence on international society’, Journal of international affairs, 48(2): 507-525. Devetak, R., and R. Higgot (1999), ‘Justice unbound? Globalisation, states and the transformation of the social bond’, International affairs, 75(3): 483-498. Economist (1999), ‘Citizens’ groups: the non governmental order’, The Economist, December 11th 22-23.

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_________________________________________________ European Commission (2000), White Paper on environmental liability. COM (2000) 66 final. Harding, C. (2001), ‘Statist assumptions, normative individualism and new forms of personality: evolving a philosophy of international law for the twenty first century’, Non state actors and international law, 1(2): 107-125. Held, D., A. Mcgrew, D. Goldblatt and J. Perraton (1999), Global transformations: politics economic and culture. Cambridge: Polity. Hirst, P. and G. Thomson, (1999), Globalisation in question 2nd ed. Cambridge: Polity Press. Hobe, S. (1997), ‘Global challenges to statehood: the increasingly important role of Nongovernmental Organizations’, Indiana journal of global legal studies, 5(1): 191-210. Hudson, A. (2001), ‘NGOs transnational networks: from ‘legitimacy’ to ‘political responsibility’’, Global Networks, 1(4): 331-352 Keane, J. (2001), ‘Global civil society’, in: , H. Anheier, M. Glasius and M. Kaldor (eds.) Global civil society 2001. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 23-47. Latour, B. (1993), We have never been modern (trans.) C. Porter. London: Harvester Wheatsheaf. Law, J. (1994), Organising modernity. Oxford: Blackwell. Macey, J. R. (1994), ‘Packaged preferences and the institutional transformation of interests’, University of Chicago law review, 61(4): 1443-1478. Marceau, G. and M. Stilwell (2001), ’Practical suggestions for amicus curaie briefs before WTO adjudicating bodies’, Journal of international economic law, 4(1):155-188. Mol, A. and J. Law, (1994), ‘Regions, networks and fluids: anaemia and social topology’, Social studies of science, 24: 641-671

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_________________________________________________ Nowrot, K. (1999), ‘Legal consequences of globalization: the status of Non-Governmental Organizations under international law’, Indiana journal of global legal studies, 6(2): 579-646. Waak, P (1995), ‘Shaping a sustainable planet: the role of Nongovernmental Organizations’, Colorado journal of international environmental law and policy, 6: 345-362. Pianta, M. (2001), Parallel summits of global civil society’, in: H. Anheier, M. Glasius. and M. Kaldor (eds.) Global civil society 2001. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 169-194. Princen, T. (1995), ‘Ivory conservation and environmental transnational coalitions’, in T. Risse-Kappen, (ed.) Bringing transnational relations back in: non state actors and international institutions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 227-257. Radcliffe, S. A. (2001), ‘Development The state and transnational political connections: state formations in Latin America’, Global Networks, 1(1): 19-36. Raustalia, K. (1997), ‘The Participatory Revolution in International Environmental Law’, Harvard Environmental Law Review, 21(2): 537586. Reinisch, A. and , C. Irgel (2001), ‘The participation of Non Governmental Organisations (NGOs) in the WTO dispute settlement system’, Non state actors and international law, 1(2): 127-151. Risse-Kappen, T. (1995), ‘Bringing transnational relations back in: introduction’, in T. Risse-Kappen (ed.) Bringing transnational relations back in: non state actors and international institutions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 3-33 Sands, P. and P. Klein (2001), Bowett’s law of international institutions 5th ed. London: Sweet & Maxwell. Sands, P.J. and A.P. Bedecarre (1990), ‘Convention on international trade in endangered species: the role of public interest Non-Governmental Organizations in ensuring the effective enforcement of the ivory trade ban’, Boston college environmental affairs law review, 17: 799.

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_________________________________________________ Shaffer, G.C. (2001), ‘The World Trade Organization under challenge: democracy and the law and politics of the WTO's treatment of trade and environment matters’, Harvard environmental law review, 25(1): 1-94. Shelton, D. (1994), ‘The participation of Nongovernmental Organizations in international judicial proceedings’, American journal of international law, 88(4): 611-642. Spiro, P. J. (1996), ‘New global potentates: Nongovernmental Organizations and the "unregulated" marketplace’, Cardozo law review, 18(3): 957-970. Tarlock, A.D. (1992), ‘The role of Non-Governmental Organizations in the development of international environmental law’, Chicago Kent law review, 68: 61-80. Thrift, N. (1996), Spatial formations. London: Sage. UIA (eds.) (1988), International associations statutes series, Vol.1. (Munich: K G Saur Verlag). Umbricht, G.C. (2001), ‘An ‘amicus curaie brief’ on amicus curaie briefs at the WTO’, Journal of international economic law, 4(4): 773-794. Wilde, M. (2001), ‘The EC Commission’s white paper on environmental liability issues and complications’, Journal of environmental law, 13(1): 21-38.

The Triple Bottom Line as a Business Basic? Corporate Citizenship and Sustainability: A Rio Tinto Case Study

David Birch Corporate Responsibility is not philanthropy – it is good business (James D. Wolfensohn, World Bank)

1.

World Economic Forum 2002

At the World Economic Forum (WEF) held in February 2002 in New York, 35 leading CEOs and Chairs of Boards of global companies, released a joint action statement headed Global Corporate Citizenship: The Leadership Challenge for CEOs and Boards recommending a framework for action that companies can use “to develop a strategy for managing their company’s impact on society and its relationships with stakeholders (WEF, 2002, 1). Using the language of corporate citizenship, the framework is designed to produced a “template for a leadership process” so that corporate citizenship issues in the company “are not an add-on but fundamental to core business operations” (WEF, 2002, 1).Companies such as Anglo American, Coca-Cola, Diageo, Boots, McDonalds, Statoil, WMC and Rio Tinto all signed, stating very clearly that business has …. an important role to play in partnership with others in the public and private sectors and civil society, to help spread the benefits of development more widely by the manner in which we pursue our primary business activities. We believe that a commitment on our part to listen to and work with these other groups makes sound business sense and will enable us to better serve the interests of our shareholders and other key stakeholders, especially over the long term. (WEF, 2002:2)

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_________________________________________________ They then ask “what does this mean in practice” for both business leaders and business in general? (WEF, 2002:2). Their answers are: 1. Our companies’ commitment to being global corporate citizens is about the way we run our own business and a “key element of this is recognising that the frameworks we adopt for being a responsible business must move beyond philanthropy and be integrated into core business strategy and practice.” (WEF, 2002, 2) 2. Our relationships with key stakeholders are fundamental to our success inside and outside our companies (WEF, 2002, 2) and this includes stakeholders in the main spheres of the company’s influence - in the workplace, marketplace, along supply chains, at the community level and in public policy dialogue.

3. Ultimate leadership for corporate citizenship rests with Chief Executives, Chairmen (sic) and Board Directors. So that: a) they provide leadership in corporate citizenship b) they define what corporate citizenship means for the company c) they make it happen d) they are transparent about it This, then, is their Framework for Action: x provide leadership x define what corporate citizenship means x make it happen x be transparent about it And they make it very clear that there is a compelling case for taking action on issues relating to global corporate citizenship: x

First, an individual business case, that in today’s world good corporate citizenship makes sound business sense. It is increasingly in the shareholders’ interests for a company to have a clear purpose and set of values, not just a matter of public relations and avoiding negative publicity.

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_________________________________________________ x

Second, a broader case that business prospers in societies that are prosperous” (WEF, 2002, 10).

So does society agree? A Business Week/Harris Poll reported in Business Week in September 2000 certainly found that only 4% of Americans agreed that US corporations should have only one purpose – to make the most profit for their shareholders – 95% agreed that US Companies should have more than one purpose and that they also owed something to their workers and communities in which they operate (WEF, 2002, 10). Many polls worldwide support these findings including the very extensive Millenium Poll on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) conducted in 1999, which surveyed thousands of citizens in 33 countries worldwide. Last year, the US based Conference Board, and the Asian Institute of Management, Instituto Ethos in Brazil and the International Business Leaders Forum, surveyed leading CEOs the world over. 700 responded, ranking the two factors as most important to their future success in addressing broader social issues as more effective management within the company of the company’s external involvements and clear leadership from Government (WEF, 2002, 11). A very significant issue to be addressed, of course, is how the aspirational CSR views of CEOs and Chairs of Boards, like the ones at the World Economic CSR Forum, and the increasing number of people whose views are now being reflected by these senior leaders, can be translated into real, everyday, core business policy and practice for ordinary managers and workers – via strategic corporate citizenship. It’s not easy – there are conflicts and contradictions in the dominant economic paradigms that rule both business and government worldwide, which would seem to mitigate very strongly against effective development here. Nevertheless, it is a real issue with which we need to engage very seriously to determine if those who say they are committing their companies to these principles actually go beyond rhetoric and are doing what many of them say they should be doing – making sure that Corporate Social Responsibility /Corporate Citizenship is really being integrated into core business. In relation to CSR the Copenhagen Centre, a leader in the field, asks the following, very pertinent, questions: Will the business community engage in broader societal processes with combined social and financial purposes? Can business develop its values and culture through strong and visionary leadership to support a new understanding of how social and environmental responsibility and

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_________________________________________________ accountability can form the foundations for both longterm market competitiveness and contributing to meeting social aims? (Copenhagen Centre, 2000, no page number) I explore this issue now with specific reference to the global mining company, Rio Tinto. 2.

Corporate Social Responsibility Principles in Rio Tinto

Rio Tinto, through its Executive Chairman, Sir Robert Wilson, its Deputy Chairman, Leon Davis, Senior Advisers like Lord Richard Holme, and Senior Executives like Leigh Clifford and Barry Cusack, are very vocal about CSR area, and have been for some years now. Rio Tinto is represented on most, if not all, of the leading bodies in the CSR field, such as the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, and it is a signatory to many of the leading initiatives in this area like the UN Global Compact; the OECD Guidelines on multinationals, and the Global Sullivan Principles. A closer examination of how the world’s second largest mining company comes to grips with some of these issues will form the basis of this chapter. Sir Robert Wilson, for example, is one of the 35 who signed the joint statement released at the World Economic Forum, and he is on the Executive Committee of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBSSD), which has just released an important paper “The Business Case for Sustainable Development. Making a Difference toward the Johannesburg Summit 2002 and Beyond” (WBCSD, 2002) as a preliminary position paper prior to Rio+10 at Johannesburg. The WBCSD defines sustainable development as “forms of progress that meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs” (WBCSD, 2002, 2). The Council’s position on CSR is that “companies should first determine what they really stand for – their vision and values, their “corporate magnetic north” (WBSCD, 2002, 6). Then they should integrate corporate social concerns into the business strategy In particular companies should: x x

focus on individuals since CSR reaches out to all stakeholders but it will be judged by its implications for individual employees, managers and citizens. determine a corporate legacy by installing an ethic of education and learning and by instituting processes to foster this ethic.

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_________________________________________________ x x x x x

put employees first as business’s best assets and ambassadors, and also know their neighbours, both their communities and cultures. establish a system for keeping CSR debates and dialogues transparent and continuous form smart partnerships, not for publicity or cover, but to realise CSR goals. measure and account for what they do report externally but report in ways that reach all stakeholders, not just those on their mailing list or on the Internet.

Overall, the WBCSD argue that A coherent CSR strategy, based on integrity, sound values, and a long term approach, offers clear business benefits to companies and a positive contribution to the well-being of society (WBCSD, 2002, 6). To do this, they recognise that to move toward …. corporate concern for the ‘triple bottom line’ – financial, social and environmental performance – requires radical change, throughout the corporation. It’s not ’either or’. The new paradigm is ‘and also’ (WBCSD, 2002, 7). Stakeholder dialogue is absolutely key to developing this new paradigm. “Progress toward sustainable development”, the WBCSD argues, “requires many more – and more complex – partnerships. Smart companies”, they say “are recognising that the most effective way to leverage change in our interdependent world is through common endeavour with others, and learning from experience” (WBCSD, 2002, 8). Smart partnerships like this, they argue, not only …. combine skills and provide access to constituencies that one partner may not have, but they also enhance the credibility of the results – results that might be less effective and believable if they came from any business, or any civil society, or any government (WBCSD, 2002, 8)

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_________________________________________________ To that end, Sir Robert Wilson has publicly welcomed what he calls “the flowing of interest in the concepts of corporate social responsibility”, believing that “responsible behaviour is essential for the creation of long-term shareholder value.” (Wilson, 2000:17) But he also recognises that while there are positive advantages to business – there are also risks, so that, in his words, As businesses, we should be careful not to overstate our contribution and role: we can and should act responsibly but by ourselves we cannot hope to achieve the careful balancing of economic, environmental and social outcomes which sustains the development demands (Wilson, 2000, 17). So, while he recognises that “responsible behaviour makes good business sense.” (Wilson, 2000, 17) he is careful to emphasise that the debate is currently focusing very heavily upon the private sector and “As business”, he says “we need to be careful not to create unrealistic expectations about what we can deliver by ourselves.” (Wilson, 2000, 19). There is a crucial role for government, civil society and other actors. Rio Tinto’s Deputy Chairman, Leon Davis, talks about this in terms of a company’s “social conscience”, “insofar as it is a call for business”, he says “to obey the moral imperative to behave decently and harmoniously” (Davis, 2001:4). But he also makes it clear that it is not in the interests of the community for business to simply act as a substitute for government, and he clearly recognises that it is much easier to talk about than to actually do it (Davis, 2001). The move is not, in the words of Bruce Harvey, Chief Adviser Aboriginal and Community Relations in Rio Tinto “about philanthropy; rather it is all about developing robust regional economies.” “Through capacity building,” he says “in the hinterland of our operations, we create a virtuous circle of business and community interaction. In this way, our communities help make our mines more competitive and the legacy we leave will survive the eventual closure, or continuation of the mining operations. We want Rio Tinto operations,” he says “to act as a catalyst that unites company, government and community in ways that strengthen and diversify local economies.” (Rio Tinto, 2000, 3). Sir Robert Wilson defines the Rio Tinto catalyst model that Bruce Harvey talks about as “going beyond the outmoded model of paternalistic philanthropy, towards partnership models within local communities.” (Wilson, 2002, 4). Interviewed in the January 2002 issue of Ethical Corporation, Wilson recognises that this requires “a different

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_________________________________________________ approach and level of awareness from our local management who know they have to take this on board as being an integral part of their operating responsibilities” (Wilson, 2002, 4). Not only should this not be delegated, he says, “to someone providing local charities with donations”, but the way we talk about it, and understand it, needs also to go beyond the outmoded language of corporate social responsibility which has concentrated so much on social impact – “as if,” he says, “it’s a one-off effect that our activities have on local communities. It’s more about social interaction, a continuing dynamic process, rather than just a one-off event.” (Wilson, 2002, 5). We know this is good business. The companies listed in the Dow Jones Sustainability Index consistently outperform those that are not. Leon Davis, Deputy Chair of Rio Tinto, knows this too, arguing that “Businesses that enter into partnership with the community, and do so with conviction and professionalism, are going to be seen as modern, responsive and to have a competitive advantage. And”, he says, “investors already know this.” (Davis, 2001, 8). Richard Holme, co-chair of the WBCSD working group on corporate social responsibility, and a senior adviser now to Rio Tinto, makes it very clear “…. if companies behave irresponsibly, in social or environmental terms, then no amount of good-cause giving will tilt their overall contribution to society back from the negative to the positive” (Holme and Watts, 2000, no page number). This is reflected in the Rio Tinto Communities Policy, (Rio Tinto undated) which states that wherever the Group operates, good relations with its neighbours are different. The policy of Rio Tinto is that every group operation shall strive to understand and interact constructively with its local communities and to assist their development in ways, which apply the following principles: x x x

mutual respect active partnership long term commitment

Mutual respect is essential to lasting beneficial interactive relationships between the Group’s operations and local communities. This requires continuing and effective two-way communications and

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_________________________________________________ realistic expectations on both sides. Active Partnership determines the way the Group works with local communities as well as with regional and national governments and other affected parties by seeking mutual commitment and reciprocity based on trust and openness so as to reach agreed objectives and shared involvement. Long-term commitment to local communities is sought so that social and economic well-being is safeguarded and, where possible, enhanced throughout the mine’s life and beyond. (Rio Tinto undated) This goes well beyond the sort of corporate philanthropy and sponsorship of communities and community organizations and activities that often come under this banner; for many companies this approach still defines the banner, of CSR. Writing a cheque is easy. What Rio Tinto has been thinking through for several years is very difficult – it is not an add-on to core business as most CSR activities are in most companies – it is positioned by Rio Tinto’s most senior executives as a business basic. It is about the company and the communities in which it operates seeing each other – interacting with each other – as mutual stakeholders. The challenge is how to translate this thinking from the corporate entity of Rio Tinto into its multiple businesses, and within those businesses for it to be embedded into everyday core business by all employees. This challenge began in earnest some years ago when Rio Tinto recognised that “The public expectations of corporate responsibility have intensified”, and that “the issue of community relations has become more challenging.” (Rio Tinto, 2001, 2) so much so that: A company that becomes seriously out of touch with the views of its host communities and other stakeholders puts itself at risk just as surely as a company that loses touch with changes in its marketplace (Rio Tinto, 2001, 3). The Rio Tinto approach to this has been to concentrate on professionalising its CSR programmes and activities into three main (and related) areas: x Bilateral partnerships 1 x Multilateral trusts and foundations 2 x Agreements with government departments and organisations 3

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_________________________________________________ This reflects a view in the Company “that good business is about developing positive relationships” (Rio Tinto, 2001, 6) and that “Rather than dissipate funds over a wide variety of activities, a limited number of strategically appropriate partnerships are supported.” (Rio Tinto, 2001, 7). What governs the choice of these partnerships is very strategic: x they must fit in with Rio Tinto’s business focus x there must be potential for the partner to benefit from the partnership x the partner needs to be able to make effective and efficient use of the funds and skills provided by Rio Tinto x there must be an opportunity for Rio Tinto people to be directly involved x there must be potential for a long term relationship 3. Strategic Corporate Citizenship in Rio Tinto – Stakeholder Engagement Stakeholder input has been crucial to Rio Tinto’s implementation of difficult policies like the ones outlined above - not just from traditional stakeholders - but by understanding the challenges of the many new key stakeholders for example local communities. In 2000, Rio Tinto invited 400 community leaders throughout Australia to participate in a survey designed to identify priority initiatives relating to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and Rio Tinto’s involvement in these initiatives. (Rio Tinto, 2001b) The main findings indicated that the most important activities for a mining company to be involved in relating to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are those that: x x x x

recognise Aboriginal culture improve employment options through training and skill development programs provide opportunities for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to be employed encourage economic independence and sustainable development for regional communities by promoting their active participation in regional economies.

These are serious challenges for any business. The mining industry has been very proactive in this area – the real issue, however, is whether the rhetoric of the policy is translating into real engagement. And the difficulty here is that we currently lack effective measures of this

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_________________________________________________ relationship. Companies can, and do, count a range of outcomes and report on them every year with ever increasing sophistication and coverage, but no company is yet reporting effectively upon outcomes of interactions – we lack the vocabulary to do this. We need radically new measures that go well beyond anything currently provided for in frameworks like the Global Reporting Initiative and the London Benchmarking Group. Nevertheless, what we can do first of all is to see what a company says it stands for, what it believes in and its position on policy, and then see what processes and practices have been put in place within the company to implement these policies. James Rose, CEO of Integrative Strategies in Australia, puts it this way “Business futures must be mapped on a social landscape as well as on a balance sheet. The Board Room is now very much part of the domain of public policy”, and he goes even further by suggesting that, “It may soon be at its centre.” (Rose, 2001, 10). For many, both within business and outside it, the idea of business being at the centre of public policy would be their worst nightmare, but if business is genuinely serious about change – about taking on board sustainability as core business and not simply as a rhetorical stance – then a more prominent public policy voice is quite clearly needed from business (see Birch and Glazebrook, 2001, Birch 2001 and Birch 2002). 4.

New Cultural Vocabularies

One way of moving a company closer to the public policy platform – something that clearly cannot be done overnight – is to break down the silo mentality that is often at the heart of corporate culture, negatively positioning the company as somehow separate from society. Engaging with stakeholders, and recognising new ones, is a good beginning in that process of breaking down corporate isolationism. Companies cannot, however, simply march into those communities and declare them mutual stakeholders. It takes time, trust and more importantly, the willingness of both sides to learn new cultural vocabularies, which will enable them to be able to talk more effectively with each other by better understanding their cultural differences. Not easy for a mining company more used to hard headed engineering cultures, and not easy for communities and community organizations nervous about powerful mining companies. Learning a new language requires patience – but it also requires practice. A significant way of getting that practice is by bridging the gap between business and the local community through the development of business partnerships with community organizations that

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_________________________________________________ can help to introduce the new community language needed for business and the new business language needed for communities. Establishing close, long-term, partnerships with leading community organizations is a significant means of beginning the process of establishing an enabling environment, where the aspirational rhetoric of CSR can be translated into strategic corporate citizenship. Business community partnerships the world over are developed and talked about mostly in terms of their immediate short term benefits – financial or otherwise. Corporate Annual Reports tend to concentrate on measuring short-term outcomes and outputs as indicators of corporate community involvement and investment. The thinking in most business and community organizations is still very firmly based on these outcomes and outputs because we are generally comfortable with the language that is used to measure such things. But, in the long run, these are not very good measures at all. They say little or nothing about a company’s ability to translate visionary/aspirational CSR rhetoric into everyday core business policy and practice. They remain, as measures, firmly within an old economics paradigm, which understands how to measure impact through enumerating concrete, tangible, outputs. What we need to be able to do is to determine measures of the more intangible, like social well-being and social inclusion. This is not easy. One major way of beginning this process is to open up some key avenues of access for different parties to be able to interact with each other, and from that interaction to develop the new cultural vocabularies that are needed in order to break down the social exclusivity barriers that currently exist. In this way better synergies will be created between all groups in society – surely the agenda at the very heart of the push for more sustainable societies – and by so doing create the enabling environment will be nurtured that will see the rhetoric of CSR become long-term core business reality. Jane Nelson, one of the world’s leading experts on business community partnerships, argues that such partnerships are “very much about a new way of dong business” (Nelson, 1996, 19). She argues that we have only just seen the beginning of this crucial trend. Business leaders of the future, she says, will need to be skilled partnership builders (Nelson, 1996, 19), making the important point that “the creation of shareholder value and societal value are not mutually exclusive and are in fact mutually reinforcing in many cases” (Nelson, 1996, 23). Nelson concludes in her report with Simon Zadek, Partnership Alchemy, that “[n]ew social partnerships are not a panacea. Nor are they easy. Even when they have the potential to solve a particular societal problem or set

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_________________________________________________ of problems, they often fail” (Nelson and Zadek, 2000:12). As the Copenhagen Centre makes clear: The future of the social partnership depends critically on whether it can prove capable of delivering societal benefits that cannot be achieved more effectively through other means. To be effective it will need to demonstrate clear added value at the local level in building sustainable livelihoods and improving quality of life in a way that actively and practically engages local communities and beneficiary groups and also, at the strategic level, in helping national and international government bodies to create an enabling environment for addressing socio economic problems (Copenhagen Centre, 2000 no page number) There are seriously significant opportunities for organizations to create such an enabling environment, not only for their own interests, but also for significant social and environmental – multiple bottom line – benefits. What this effectively means, therefore, is for organizations to leverage added value from a partnership – in better, and more clearly articulated and strategic ways than perhaps has been done so far – to ensure that the rhetoric of CSR, espoused by senior executives of companies will, one day, via the vehicle of strategic corporate citizenship, and the enabling environment it creates for the learning of new cultural vocabularies, be effectively translated into the everyday reality of core business.

Notes 1

Current partnerships in Australia for example include the Australian Science Olympiads, Conservation Volunteers Australia, Centre for Appropriate Technology, Alice Springs, Earthwatch Institute (Australia) and World Wide Fund for Nature, Australia. Others worldwide include Birdlife International, BTCV, Kew Gardens and Earthwatch Institute (Europe). 2 Current Rio Tinto Community Trusts and Foundations in Australia directly involving Rio Tinto businesses include Central Highlands Community Employment Trust (Pacific Coal); Coal and Allied

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_________________________________________________ Community Trust; Tarong Coal Community Development Fund and the Rio Tinto Aboriginal Foundation. 3 Some of the most significant Rio Tinto agreements with government organisations in Australia include a 1998 Memorandum Of Understanding (MOU) with the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC) and 1998 MOUs with the then named Department of Education, Training and Youth Affairs (DETYA), and the Department of Employment Workplace Relations and Small Business (DEWRSB)

References Birch, D. (2001), ‘Corporate citizenship. rethinking business beyond corporate social responsibility’, in: J. Andriof and M. McIntosh (eds.) Perspectives on corporate citizenship. London,: Greenleaf Publishing. 5365. Birch, D., (2002), ‘Social, economic and environmental capital: corporate citizenship in a new economy’, Alternative law journal, 27(1): 3-6. Birch, D. and M. Glazebrook (2000), ‘Doing business- doing culture; corporate citizenship and community’, in S. Rees and S. Wright (eds.) Human rights, corporate responsibility. A dialogue. Annandale NSW: Pluto. 41-52 Copenhagen Centre (2000), publicity flyer for Nelson and Zadek. Davis, L. A. (2001), ‘The social responsibility of corporations’, The corporate citizen, 1(4): 2-8. Holme, R. and P. Watts (2000), Corporate social responsibility: making good business sense. WBCSD http://www.wbcsd.org Little, A. D. (2001), ‘The business case for corporate citizenship’, www.weforum.org/corporatecitizenship Nelson, J. (1996), Business as partners in development creating wealth for countries, companies and communities. London: The Prince of Wales’

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_________________________________________________ Business Leaders Forum with the World Bank and the United Nations Development Programme. Nelson, J. and P. Zadek (2000), Partnership alchemy. New society partnerships in Europe, Copenhagen: Copenhagen Centre. Rio Tinto, undated, Communities policy guidelines. London and Melbourne: Rio Tinto plc and Rio Tinto Ltd. Rio Tinto, (2000), Social and environment review. London and Melbourne: Rio Tinto plc and Rio Tinto Ltd Rio Tinto (2001), Community relations. Global business, local neighbour. London and Melbourne: Rio Tinto plc and Rio Tinto Ltd Rio Tinto (2001b), Rio Tinto in Australia. Indigenous priorities survey. Melbourne: Rio Tinto Ltd. Rose, J. (2001), ‘Blame it on the Rio Tinto movement’, The Australian Financial Review, April: 10: 12-16. Wilson, R. (2000) ‘Big business: neither sinner nor saviour’, Visions of Ethical Business 3, Financial Times. London :Warwick Business School in Association with Price WaterHouseCoopers and the Council on Economic Priorities. 17-19. Wilson, R., (2002), ‘Interview’, Ethical corporation, January: 4-5. Issue 2. World Business Council for Sustainable Development (2002), The business case for sustainable development making a difference toward Johannesburg 2002. http://www.wbcsd.org World Economic Forum (WEF) (2002), Global corporate citizenship: the leadership challenge for CEOs and Boards. Geneva: WEF, January 2002. www.weforum.org

Section D

Applying Environmental Justice


Dysfunctional Technology Transfer: The Challenge of Global Markets

David E. Smith and J. Robert Skalnik

1.

Biotechnology and the Agriculture Sector

In as much as advances in biotechnology will have significant impact on the development of future industrial economics (Frewer and Shepherd, 1995), the nature and efficiency of the processes through which such technologies are disseminated and accepted by worldwide markets are of considerable interest. Biotechnology is predicted to have an enormous impact on agriculture, as well as numerous other industries (The Wall Street Journal Europe 1999). In addition to revolutionary advances in diagnosis, pharmaceuticals, vaccines, and hormones, biotechnology offers the capability of modifying the genetic structure of animals and plants to improve quality, yields, and resistance. Development and marketing of the genetically altered plants and the use of genetically engineered hormones in animals are the two most significant applications. Worldwide, the agricultural market is expected to become the largest single market for biotechnological processes and products (Buttel et al., 1984). A report from the OECD (1989) predicts that new biotechnological techniques in agriculture will result in dynamic developments with far-reaching implications for the entire agricultural-industrial complex. The proposed shifts in emphasis in agriculture from quantity to quality and from food surpluses to new industrial products calls for structural transformation in agribusiness, and for changes in the interaction between agriculture and industry (Ulhøj, 1991). World population is growing by 800 million per decade, and it is expected to double to 100 billion by 2100. Biotechnology is the key to feeding the world’s population and to raising world nutrition standards. Genetically superior crops of corn, wheat, tomatoes, and soyabeans will yield larger harvests and biotechnology improvements in the food supply will help prevent illness and boost human productivity (Reinhardt, 1998). However, widespread acceptance of the products of biotechnology is by no means assured. Sparks, Shepherd and Frewer (1995) suggest that public attitudes toward the use of genetic technology are considered to be a major factor influencing the extent of the future development of the

Dysfunctional Technology Transfer 134 ___________________________________________________________ technology. Survey research indicates that while the public at large often expresses little knowledge about biotechnology, it nevertheless frequently expresses concern about it. Environmentalists worry about the long-tem effects of plants, which are genetically altered to resist herbicides (Margoronis, 1998). Monsanto has countered with taglines such as “We believe food should be grown with less pesticides. More biotechnology plants mean less industrial ones,” and “Worrying about starving future generations won’t feed them. Biotechnology will” (Goosner 1998). Frewer and Shepherd (1995) suggest that public attitudes toward genetic engineering technologies are defined by a complex set of perceptions involving risk, benefit, control, and ethical issues. Furthermore, uses of genetic engineering are viewed as riskier and less beneficial when these are applied to food production rather than to medicine. Ethical objections were also greater for the applications of biotechnology to food rather than to medicine. The short-term effects in medicine have been more dramatic and seem to outweigh these ethical objections. Applications in agriculture have shown divergent results. Genetically modified crops have been moderately successful, however, the application of the genetic modification of animals’ structures in order to improve quality or yields, has had a slower rate of acceptance. Consumer reaction to the use of biotechnology in foods and the subsequent acceptance of the resulting products, may be determined largely by perceptions of both the risks and benefits associated with the technology and its application (Frewer, Shepherd and Sparks 1994). If the perceptions of risk outweigh those of potential benefits, consumer acceptance may be quite low. Interestingly, yet not surprisingly, consumers frequently develop opinions about the relative risks and benefits of biotechnology without having a high level of understanding about the technology. Consumer reaction to biotechnology may be negative because the public does not understand the technology and its potential applications (Frewer, Shepherd and Sparks 1994). If so, the low level of public understanding suggests the possibility of the influence of emotional as well a rational argument (Barbano, 1994). Perhaps this helps explain why supporters of biotechnology have called for a comprehensive effort to educate consumers about genetically engineered products, especially foods. Donna Scott of Cornell University has said that “[b]asically, the public is scientifically illiterate. It’s harsh to say, but it’s true. People don’t have the background to assess what’s safe and what isn’t, and that makes it easier for people to spread disinformation” (quoted in Phillips, 1994).

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_________________________________________________ 2.

A Historical Sketch of Biotechnology

Historically, the application of biotechnology to agriculturally related enterprises has been the subject of both scientific and political controversy for nearly fifty years. Initial developments of a new type of potato in the 1960s proved that genetic alterations can have unexpected effects, when the genetically engineered product proved to be poisonous. In the 1970s, scientists developed the rudiments of recombinant deoxyribonucleic acid technology (rDNA). It was not until 1979 that Cornell University scientists initiated the first study on the effect of recombinant bovine somatotropine (bST) on the milk-producing capacity of dairy cows. Throughout the 1980s, the development of more sophisticated recombinant DNA techniques made the genetic transformation of both plants and animals possible. In 1983, researchers at the Monsanto Company in the United States, and at centres in West Germany and Belgium, succeeded in disarming the bacterium responsible for common plant disease so that it could be used to transfer new DNA into plants without causing the disease (Eppard and Bauman, 1984). In 1985, the United States government’s Food and Drug Administration FDA ruled that meat and milk from cows treated with bST are safe for human consumption, but the agency held back its approval for use of the hormone as a veterinary drug in order to allow further research into its affects on animal health (Brookes and Young 1992). In 1986, the Reagan administration issued a framework for regulating biotechnology through existing laws, to be implemented by the FDA, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). In 1987, the USDA issued the first permits for field testing genetically engineered crops in the United States. Soon after, in 1989, Calgene Inc. in Davis, California, held initial conversations with the FDA about the possibility of seeking approval for its genetically engineered Flavr Savr tomato. During the early 1990s, the first genetically engineered foods became available to the general public in the USA. In 1990, the American Medical Association (AMA) and National Institutes of Health (NIH) Technology Assessment Conference concluded in separate reviews that meat and milk from rBST-treated cows were as safe as those from untreated cows (Chemical Marketing Reporter 1993). In 1992, in a significant regulatory decision, the FDA elected not to require pre-market notification or labelling for most genetically engineered foods from plants. In 1993, the EPA approved the use of rBST in dairy cows, sparking controversy and protests, which had little effect,

Dysfunctional Technology Transfer 136 ___________________________________________________________ and in January 1994, the United States Government issued a report finding no evidence of a health threat to animals or humans from rBST use in dairy cattle (Greising 1993, Ropp 1994). In 1994, however, the State of Maine passed a law directing farmers using artificial bST to register that information with the diaries they supply and establishing an official label for milk from untreated cows. Likewise, the State of Vermont has enacted legislation requiring food companies to put a label on dairy products made with milk from bST-treated cows (Agricultural Marketing 1994, Tauer, 1994). The FDA’s conclusions regarding the use of bST in milk-producing cows have been ratified in recent years by the AMA, the NIH, the Congressional Office of Technological Assessment, and the American Academy of Paediatrics (CVM Update 1996). The hormone in question, recombinant bovine somatotropine (bST), was the first genetically engineered product to be approved by the FDA. It is the use of genetically engineered hormones in milk-producing cows, which is the topic of this study. 3.

The bST Controversy in the United States

Since 1994, when the FDA approved the use of genetically engineered growth hormone to stimulate milk production in cows, worldwide concern has been expressed by consumer protection groups who fear that the genetically manipulated hormone, known as bovine somatotropine (bST) and an earlier version porcine somatotropine (pST), might negatively effect the safety of milk. Concern was also expressed by small dairy farmers who predict that increased, more efficient milk production will lead to lower prices and ultimately put them out of business (Greising 1993). Another concern, according to Blayney, Fallert and Shagam (1991) is animal health and welfare. Contrary to widespread characterizations, bST—also known as recombinant bovine somatotropine (rBST) and bovine growth hormone (BGH)—is produced from the same genes that cows use to produce the hormone naturally in the pituitary glands. Marketed by the Monsanto Company under the trade name Posilac, bST is a natural hormone in cows, which is manufactured in vats of genetically altered bacteria (Savitz 1992). Cows receiving regular doses of the hormone can increase their milk production by up to 15%; the average increase is around 10% (Garry 1994). The Monsanto Company claims that milk from cows treated with bST is no different from ordinary milk, either in taste or quality (Kirschner, 1994, Lucas 1994). Government officials in the United States support Monsanto’s efforts to maintain the lead in the biotechnology race (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services 1994). In any event,


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_________________________________________________ Chemical Marketing Reporter (1993) notes that the approval of bST will give Monsanto new access to a global market, although its market potential has not yet been realized due to tough competition (The Wall Street Journal Europe 1999). Reaction from the consumer marketplace in the United States has been mixed. Some research into consumer attitudes in the United States has indicated that consumer resistance may lead to a significant decrease in milk consumption after widespread introduction of bST milk (Ropp 1994). The United States Government concluded in January 1994, that the social and economic impacts of bST would be minimal. Some farmers counter this conclusion by predicting that increased milk production will drive prices down, making it difficult for milk producers in the United States and for smaller farmers to survive (Elmer-Dewitt 1994). More significant is the fact that there is currently an over-production of milk in the United States, and that dairy farmers are subsidized by the Federal government. In the United States, this is a classic example of undesirable consequences to an individual or to a social system that are the dysfunctional effects of an innovation. The degree to which an innovation is desirable or undesirable ultimately depends on how the innovation affects the members of the system. The determination of whether consequences are functional or dysfunctional depends on how the innovation affects the adopters. It is possible, of course, for an innovation to produce consequences for individuals other than its adopters (Rogers 1995). In the case of bST-treated milk, rejecters of the new idea may be affected because the innovation gives a boost to the other members of the system that adopt it (the dairy farmers who use bST hormone in milk production), causing a widening a socio-economic gap over the rejecters. So consequences do not occur exclusively to those individuals or systems that decide to adopt an innovation. Often everyone in the system is touched by the consequences (Rogers 1995). Experience to date seems to indicate that no significant reduction in demand for milk or dairy products has occurred yet in the USA as a result of bST usage. Although some surveys reveal pockets of resistance, others indicate overall confidence in the quality and safety of the milk supply and reveal no intentions to avoid consumption of bST-treated milk (Ropp 1994). Indeed, if the everyday consumer does not detect a difference between milk from bST-treated cows and milk from untreated cows, the entire issue may remain largely invisible to the general consumer until consumer awareness leads to a mass reaction (Blayney, Fallert and Shagam, 1991). The four societal concerns are labelling, socio-

Dysfunctional Technology Transfer 138 ___________________________________________________________ economic effects, human health, and animal health and welfare (Wang, Boisvert and Kaiser, 1994). 4.

The bST Controversy in the European Union

The European Union had taken a different stand on the bST issue, initially, by banning the use of the genetically altered hormone in member countries for a five-year period, until December 31, 1999 (Official Journal of the European Communities, 1994). Although this may seem reactionary, according to Usher (1988), it is in reality a continuation of the early EEC policies, which set out five objectives for the Common Agricultural Policy: (1)

(2) (3) (4) (5)

to increase agricultural productivity by promoting technical progress and by ensuring the rational development of agricultural production and the optimum utilization of the factors of production, in particular, labour; to ensure a fair standard of living for the agricultural community; to stabilize markets; to assure the availability of supplies; and to ensure that supplies reach consumers at reasonable prices.

The European Court has enforced these agricultural policies that aimed at giving certain guarantees of means to agricultural producers and excluded non-member countries from the marketplace. This appears to be a reasonable approach, since there is an over-production of milk within the European Union. The Monsanto Company, with support from the Unites States government, attempted to counter these actions by having the bST ban declared illegal under The World Trade Organization (WTO) as a restraint on trade. However, international standards for bST needed to be established before such a charge could be brought under the treaty (Joint FAO/WHO Expert Committee on Food Additives, 1998). On June 30, 1999, the Codex Alimentarius Commission, meeting in Rome, failed to agree on an international standard for the Maximum Residue Level (MRL) for bST in milk. This ruling effectively stopped the WTO complaint by the United States and allowed the European Union to proceed (Bedford, 2000). In November 1999, the European Commission adopted a measure that would permanently ban the use of bST in Europe. This action was announced by Commissioner David Burne before a European Parliament hearing on November 24, 1999, representing the final act of a six-year struggle over the bST issue (Bedford, 2000).


139

_________________________________________________ 5.

Conclusions

Despite the controversies and uncertainties described above, the introduction in the United States of milk from bST-treated cows has had little impact on consumer demand or price. Limited scientific evidence, at this time, indicates that such milk is identical in quality, taste, and nutritional value to milk from untreated cows. The possible long-term implications of the use of the bST hormone are unknown. Currently the Monsanto Company only licenses bST for use in Mexico, the Republic of South Africa, and the United States. The European Community has placed a moratorium on the use of bST in the fifteen member countries. Supporters argue that genetically engineered products, in general, will increase the production of lower-cost foods, contribute to increasing the world’s food supply, and meet the demands of a rapidly growing population (The Economist 1994). However, use of the bST hormone for milk-producing cows is not an issue in the diet of the world population, other than in a few selected countries. Other advances in the genetic engineering of animals, relating to food production may ultimately be impossible to resist. In fact bST may be only the beginning of a new trend toward the use of biotechnology on the farm; a trend that even the most resistant consumers will have difficulty avoiding. Newer techniques could make bST obsolete. For example, advanced animal reproduction techniques could lead to genetically superior animals: cows developed to produce higher natural levels of bST so that injections of the artificially produced hormone are no longer necessary. Furthermore, newer products hold the promise of overall improvements in animal health, thus potentially reducing the risk of infections and related diseases (Kalter, 1985). At present, consumers throughout the world tend to express low levels of familiarity with biotechnology. Yet an emerging pattern exists in which people tend to associate biotechnology with high risks rather than low risks, and with low benefits rather than high benefits. Other components of peoples’ attitudes are their perceptions of ethical issues, the perceived need for the technology, and the perceived likelihood that the new technology will lead to improvements in the general quality of life (Sparks, Shepherd and Frewer 1994). Advances that scientifically aware people consider to be less risky may, in fact, lead to extra anxiety among those who do not understand the progress of biotechnology, or who lack confidence in the way in which this new power is applied (Prieels, 1993).

Dysfunctional Technology Transfer 140 ___________________________________________________________

References Agricultural Marketing (1994), ‘Dairy farmers report bST usage’, 32(7) (July-August): 43. Barbano, D. M. (1994), ‘What's the fuss about cow hormone?’ Consumer research magazine, 77(5): 14. Bedford, C. (2000), ‘rBGH reconsidered,’ Animal welfare institute quarterly, 49(3), Summer. Blayney, D. P., R. F. Fallert and S. D. Shagam (1991), ‘Controversy over Livestock Growth Hormones Continues’, Food review, 14(4) (OctoberDecember): 6-9. Brookes, G. and N. Young (1992), ‘BST: assessing its impact on milk consumption, British food journal, 94(5): 26-31. Buttel, F.H., J.T. Cowan, M. Kenney and J. Kloppenburg Jr. (1984) ‘Biotechnology in agriculture: the political economy of agribusiness reorganization and industry-university relationships’, Research in rural sociology and development, 1: 315-348. Chemical Marketing Reporter (1993), ‘FDA Approves Monsanto's Milk Producing Hormone’, 244(20) (15 November): 3-20. CVM update (1996), ‘Two year report on BST’, FDA Center for Veterinary Medicine: Rockville, USA. Elmer-Dewitt, P. (1994), ‘Brave new world of milk’, Time, 143(7): 31. Eppard P.J. and D.E. Bauman (1984), ‘The effect of long-term administration of growth hormone on the performance of lactating cows’, in: Proceedings of the 1984 Cornell Nutrition Conference, 30 October-1 November, Syracuse, New York. Frewer, L. J., R. Shepherd and P. Sparks (1994), ‘Biotechnology and food production: knowledge and perceived risk’, British food journal, 96(9): 2632. Frewer, L. J. and R. Shepherd (1995), ‘Ethical concerns and risk perceptions associated with different applications of genetic engineering:


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_________________________________________________ interrelationships with the perceived need for regulation of the technology’, Agriculture and human values, 12 (Fall): 48-57. Garry, M. (1994), ‘The milk dilemma’, Progressive grocer, 73(5)(May): 8590. Goozner, M. (1998), “Giant poised to enter a new era, firm plans to be at vanguard of a revolution in biotechnology’, Chicago tribune, (2 June): 1. Greising, D. (1993), ‘Crying over unnatural milk’, Business week, (3347) (22 November): 48. Joint FAO/WHO Expert Committee on Food Additives (1998), Summary and conclusions from fiftieth meeting. Rome, 17-26 February. Kalter, R.J. (1985), ‘The new biotech agriculture: unforeseen economic consequences,’ Issues in science and technology, 2(1): 125-133. Kirschner, E. (1994), ‘Monsanto ready for bST sales,’, Chemical week, 154(4) (2 February): 2. Lucas, A. (1994), ‘Monsanto's bST hormone scores success down on the farm’, Chemical week, 154(16) (27 April): 13. Margoronis, M. (1998), ‘Greenwashed’, The nation, (19 October): 10. OECD (1989), Biotechnology and the changing role of government. Paris: OECD Publication Services. Official journal of the European Communities (1994), Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications of the European Communities, Section L 366(936)(29 December): 19-20. Phillips, S. C. (1994), ‘Genetically engineered foods’, CQ research, 4(29)(5 August): 673-93. Prieels, A. M. (1993), Development of an environmental bio-industry: European perceptions and prospects. Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications of the European Communities.

Dysfunctional Technology Transfer 142 ___________________________________________________________ Reinhardt, F. L. (1998), ‘Environmental product differentiation: implications for corporate strategy’, California management review, (Summer): 43-70. Rogers, E. M. (1995), Diffusion of innovations 4th ed. New York: The Free Press. Ropp, K. L. (1994), ‘New animal drug increases milk production’, FDA consumer, 28(4): 24. Savitz, E. J. (1992), ‘Milking the cow for all she's worth’, Barron's, 72(22) (1 June): 20. Sparks, P., R. Shepherd and L. J. Frewer (1994), ‘Gene Technology, food production and public opinion: a U.K. Study’, Agriculture and human values, 11(1) (Winter). Sparks, P., R. Shepherd and L. J. Frewer (1995), ‘Assessing and structuring attitudes toward the use of gene technology in food production: the role of perceived ethical obligation’, Basic and applied psychology, 16(3): 267285. Tauer, L. W. (1994), ‘The value of segmenting the milk market into bSTproduced and non-bST-produced milk’, Agribusiness, 10(1) (January): 312. The Economist (1994), ‘Chemicals in food: un-cowed’, 330(7856) (26 March): 32. Ulhøj, J. P. (1991), ‘The dynamics of technological change: a strategic perspective’, (Thesis) Aarhus, Denmark: The Aarhus School of Business. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (1994), “The use of bovine somatotropine (bST) in the United States; its potential effects’, (11 January), Washington, D.C: Government Printing Office. Usher, J.A. (1988), Legal aspects of agriculture in the European Community. Oxford: Clarendon Press. The Wall Street Journal Europe (1999, July 8), Vol. XVII, No. 110: 3.


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_________________________________________________ Wang, F., R. N. Boisvert and H. M. Kaiser (1994), ‘U.S. dairy policy alternatives under bovine somatotropine’, Applied economics, 26(4) (April): 283-295.


Agricultural Biotechnology and Human Rights

Kristen Hessler 1.

Introduction

Scientists, farmers, consumers, environmentalists and agribusinesses are already interested in agricultural biotechnology. Human rights advocates should be interested as well, because the products of biotechnology have significant potential impact on human rights, for better or worse. While some are tempted to treat biotechnology as a monolithic force for good or evil, I contend that each biotechnology product (for example, Bt corn or golden rice) must be evaluated individually in terms of the likely consequences of its widespread use and its potential role in an overall strategy for the promotion of human rights. Human rights advocates should seriously consider genetically modified (GM) crops as strategies, or components of strategies, to combat particular human rights problems. At the same time, they should pay close attention to possible threats to human rights that might result from the imprudent use of biotechnology. In this chapter, I describe the connections between biotechnology and human rights, and I sketch the kinds of facts that human rights advocates should consider when evaluating biotechnology. 2.

Human Rights

Two kinds of human right are especially relevant to agricultural biotechnology; rights to adequate nutrition and rights to an environment conducive to human health. Rights to adequate nutrition have been a part of international human rights law for most of its history. 1 The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) states: “Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care” (Article 25). The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) of 1976 expanded on this assertion as follows: The States Parties to the present Covenant, recognizing the fundamental right of everyone to be free from hunger, shall take, individually and through international cooperation, the measures, including specific programmes, which are needed: (a) To improve methods of production, conservation and distribution of food by making full use of technical and

Agricultural Biotechnology and Human Rights 146 ___________________________________________________________ scientific knowledge, by disseminating knowledge of the principles of nutrition and by developing or reforming agrarian systems in such a way as to achieve the most efficient development and utilization of natural resources; (b) Taking into account the problems of both foodimporting and food-exporting countries, to ensure an equitable distribution of world food supplies in relation to need (Article 11). Environmental human rights, by contrast, are a newer development in human rights law, and are less well established (Wellman, 1999). 2 The United Nations’ Stockholm Declaration of 1972, which is not legally binding, contains the first UN endorsement of environmental human rights. Its first principle reads: “[m]an has the fundamental right to freedom, equality and adequate conditions of life, in an environment of a quality that permits a life of dignity and well-being, and he bears a solemn responsibility to protect and improve the environment for present and future generations.” The ICESCR also makes reference to environmental rights. In recognizing the right to “the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health,” Article 12 demands that parties to the ICESCR provide for “improvement of all aspects of environmental and industrial hygiene.” However, most of the work to articulate environmental human rights is still under way. While some nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) have campaigned in favour of official recognition for environmental human rights, no environmental rights treaties currently exist in international law (International Institute for Environment and Development, 2001; ANPED, n.d., Boyle and Anderson, 1996). 3 Rights to adequate nutrition and environmental rights are regarded as suspect in some quarters. Rights to adequate nutrition have been categorized as welfare rights and challenged by conservatives and libertarians (Kelley, 1998; Cranston, 1973). Environmental rights have been criticized by many as a glaring example of the wanton proliferation of human rights recognized in international law (Marks, 1981). However, the values that most centrally justify the claim that rights to nutrition and a healthy environment are legitimate human rights are widely accepted, even if these particular rights are not. The claim that a human right to adequate nutrition exists is equivalent to the claim that all people are morally entitled to adequate nutrition. This is much stronger than claiming that it is a good thing that people should be adequately nourished, or that providing adequate nutrition for citizens is an important goal of government. It is stronger

Kristen Hessler 147 ___________________________________________________________ because it implies that everyone has a legitimate moral claim to be provided with adequate nutrition, and that they have been wronged—their rights have been violated—if they are not provided with adequate nutrition. (This assumes that certain background conditions are satisfied. For example, it assumes that some agent, most saliently a government, could have provided adequate nutrition for the undernourished.) The same can be said, mutatis mutandis, for rights to a healthy environment. Much of the controversy over human rights to adequate nutrition or a healthy environment stems from the implicit assumption that people have justified moral claims against their governments to be provided with such goods. The objections from conservatives and libertarians challenge the assumption that any such claims to economic, social, or environmental goods are justified. Moreover, objections in international law to environmental rights focus on both the apparent impracticability of implementing such rights as well as the possibility that recognizing rights to an adequately healthy environment might weaken the moral and political force of traditional civil and political human rights, which protect people from tyranny, torture, and other egregious abuses by their governments. Whereas an element of a justified moral claim is essential to an adequate understanding of assertions of human rights, as a practical matter the implementation of human rights deals much more in terms of goals and strategies than in absolutist proclamations about justified moral claims. The world seldom cooperates with absolute principles, although such principles can guide action by structuring priorities. For example, true believers in the proposition that all people have a right to adequate nutrition must face the choice of different strategies to provide adequate nutrition to everyone, and the options available are not likely to be magic bullets capable of immediately solving the problem of hunger for all. Different options are likely to benefit different people or groups of people in different ways, so the choice of strategies must aim to maximize expected benefits and minimize harms. Practically speaking, then, the strategy followed by the human rights advocate is likely to mesh nicely with strategies pursued even by those who deny that a human right to adequate nutrition exists, but who think it important for any reason— political, economic, or moral—that governments and international institutions seek to provide adequate nutrition for the undernourished. The case for strategies for environmental protection is more complicated. A human rights approach to the environment will differ from non-anthropocentric environmental advocacy and other approaches to ensuring environmental conditions of health for human beings. An environmental human rights approach would of necessity take an

Agricultural Biotechnology and Human Rights 148 ___________________________________________________________ anthropocentric view of the importance of environmental protection, because the most basic justification for any project in service of environmental human rights would have to refer centrally to its benefit for human beings. For this reason, such justifications would not satisfy environmental advocates who reject anthropocentrism in ethics. However, in pursuit of practical solutions to environmental problems, the strategies pursued in the service of environmental human rights will frequently overlap with those pursued by other environmentalists and by others seeking a healthy human environment. For example, chemical run-off from industrial agriculture is a hazard to ecosystems and eventually to human health; presumably, people working for human environmental health, from a rights-based or non-rights-based perspective, can ally themselves with people more centrally concerned with the health of ecosystems in the goal of reducing such run-off. With these points in mind, what should we say about biotechnology’s impact on human rights? 3.

Agricultural Biotechnology and Human Rights

We cannot provide a general evaluation of agricultural biotechnology solely from a human rights perspective, for three main reasons. First, because promoting one human right is not necessarily going to be conducive to promoting another, evaluations of biotechnology should be indexed to particular human rights. Second, because different GM crops have different properties and will be used in different ways, they will have different effects on human rights. Therefore, evaluations of biotechnology from a human rights perspective should be indexed to particular kinds of GM crops. Third, a final assessment of any effects of biotechnology on human rights must consider the full range of alternative strategies for promoting human rights. Different alternatives will be relevant for the evaluation of different GM crops. The practical requirements of promoting different human rights, which are often complementary, are not always identical. For example, environmental goals may conflict, at least in the short term, with the aim of providing adequate nutrition for undernourished people. In such cases, different human rights will have to be prioritized, and it is always possible that strategies for fulfilling one human right may set back efforts at fulfilling another. This said, it is true that human rights tend to be complementary. Poverty may lead to environmental destruction, which in turn contributes to malnutrition and more poverty. Political processes are entwined in these chains, so civil and political rights are closely bound up with social, economic and cultural rights. At the very least, we should pursue strategies that advance as many of our values that we can (all else

149 Kristen Hessler ___________________________________________________________ being equal), rather than focusing narrowly on isolated goals. Nonetheless, it remains the case that incorporating biotechnology into strategies for pursuing human rights will likely have different effects for different human rights. For example, virus-resistant sweet potatoes, currently undergoing field trials in Kenya, may have no measurable effect (or no significant negative effects) on the local environment when grown on family plots, yet may have significant positive effects on the nutritional status of local farmers (Wambugu, 2001). 4 Assessments of the impact of biotechnology in terms of human rights should therefore be indexed to particular human rights. Evaluations of biotechnology from a human rights perspective should also be indexed to particular GM crops. This assumes that it is possible for biotechnology, in the form of particular GM crops, to alleviate hunger or malnutrition, and that the use of or research on GM crops will not necessarily degrade the environment. These are fairly weak assumptions, but some deny them, or at least seem to deny them. For example, in his essay, “Why agricultural biotechnology and high-tech agriculture cannot feed the world,” (Kimbrell, 1998) Andrew Kimbrell is concerned to discredit four claims that are used to support the use of biotechnology in feeding the world. The claims are: (a) “World hunger is caused primarily by a shortage of food with which to feed a growing population;” (b) “Larger, technology-intensive farms are more efficient for food production;” (c) “‘Low-tech’ alternatives to highyield industrial crop production require more land to produce the same output, thus threatening wetlands, forests and other unique ecosystems;” (d) “Biotechnology will feed the world, with less chemical use, less pollution and fewer resources.” There are good reasons to be sceptical about these claims; for example, it is not yet clear what the short and long term effects of widespread use of genetically modified crops will be on the total use of chemicals in agriculture. As Wolfenbarger and Phifer note: Carefully designed experiments are needed to ascertain what effect individual transgenic crops have on agrochemical use, independent of other important variables, and the toxicity of the chemicals used needs to be assessed. For example, are environmentally friendly chemicals replacing more potentially harmful ones, or are we using a greater amount of chemicals with comparable toxicity? (Wolfenbarger and Phifer, 2000, 2091)

Agricultural Biotechnology and Human Rights 150 ___________________________________________________________ Collectively, Kimbrell’s arguments make apparent the implausibility of any claims that biotechnology alone is a solution to world hunger, or even that biotechnology is essential to ending world hunger. 5 Importantly, however, even if one were to concede that all these four claims were false, this would not provide a reason to rule out the use of particular GM crops in the overall effort to eliminate world hunger and malnutrition. Will research on, or use of, GM organisms necessarily degrade the environment? If so, then there would be good reason to argue that biotechnology cannot advance the cause of environmental human rights. It is not clear, however, what the environmental effects of particular biotechnologies will be. There is, therefore, room for pro-biotechnology forces to attempt to show that their products will in fact benefit the environment. In this regard, probably the most that can be shown is the expected environmental impact of one product at a time. For example, Bt crops may reduce the use of pesticides and therefore prove more conducive, than non-GM crops, to coexistence with other species. Questions remain, however, about the long-term effects of Bt crops on the environment. For example, over time they may cause resistance in target pests to the Bt protein, or the Bt toxin may accumulate in the ecosystem to the detriment of other species (Wolfenbarger and Phifer, 2000). These questions about environmental impact are specific to Bt crops in general, and the answers may be different for different Bt crops. Moreover, all questions about the environmental effects of Bt crops could be answered without providing any evidence one way or another about whether golden rice and other GM crops are environmentally sound. For these kinds of reasons, the environmental human rights impacts of biotechnology will have to be indexed to particular GM crops. The view that the human rights impacts of biotechnology must be indexed to particular applications of biotechnology assumes that there is no reason to believe, prior to an examination of the risks and benefits of particular biotechnology products, that biotechnology solutions for problems of hunger and environmental degradation are better than other types of solution to these problems. Unfortunately, the proponents of biotechnology sometimes imply otherwise. In one interview, Ingo Potrykus, a co-inventor of golden rice, was asked whether people would eat golden rice at all, given that it is yellow, not white. “People will have the freedom to decide whether they want healthy children or white rice,” he replied (quoted in Fumento, 2001). While this statement implies that golden rice is somehow the only choice for those who want to combat vitamin A deficiency, this is not really Potrykus’s view. In the same interview, he asserted that golden rice is only one tool among many in the

151 Kristen Hessler ___________________________________________________________ fight against world hunger, and that it “is meant only to complement traditional interventions.” The tendency to slip into rhetoric that implies that golden rice is essential in fighting malnutrition is unfortunate, as it spurs those worried about biotechnology to debunk myths about it rather than to focus on particular products of biotechnology and to ask seriously whether they might be of some use as we seek to promote human rights around the world. Finally, the potential for GM crops to promote human rights either by combating malnutrition or by protecting the environment must be balanced not only against the risks they pose, but also against the feasibility and cost-effectiveness of other alternatives for promoting human rights. Because implementing human rights necessitates the choice of strategies to solve human rights problems, human rights advocates should focus on the claims about particular GM crops and compare these with the potential value of alternative strategies. The alternative or complementary strategies one must consider will depend on the intended function of a particular GM crop. This implies that those concerned with nutrition and the environment should evaluate the potential value of particular GM crops, rather than evaluate biotechnology as a whole. For example, while golden rice may help to alleviate vitamin A deficiency in developing nations, this benefit might be obtained more cheaply and quickly via more mundane strategies such as distributing vitamin A capsules. Programs currently in place to distribute capsules face their own challenges and limitations, however. These include problems in accessing remote regions, problems with regular and continued delivery of the capsules, and problems with the toxicity of vitamin A, because many capsule-distribution programs distribute high-dose capsules a few times a year. On the other hand, capsule distribution and food fortification are programmes that are available now, but golden rice is still in the research and testing stages (International Rice Research Institute, 200-2001). Advocates of human rights must consider such specific information about particular applications of biotechnology in order to evaluate biotechnology from a human rights perspective. Given the claims made by both proponents and opponents of biotechnology, advocates of human rights should seriously assess any GM crops that might be relevant to their mission.

Agricultural Biotechnology and Human Rights 152 ___________________________________________________________

Notes 1

In discussing international law here, I do not mean to confine this paper to a legal analysis of the status of biotechnology. Rather, I think it is helpful to explain moral human rights in terms of their appearance in international human rights law, because international human rights law represents something of a global consensus about moral human rights. 2 When I use the terms “environmental rights” or “environmental human rights,” I mean to refer to rights that are related to the environment and possessed by human beings. Thus my discussion is not relevant to the question in environmental ethics of whether rights can be ascribed to nonhuman animals, other living creatures, natural objects (like rocks or ecosystems), or nature as a whole. For a good discussion of this question, with relevant bibliography, see Wellman, 1999, Ch. 5, “Animal Rights and Environmental Ethics.” By discussing environmental human rights, I do not mean to imply any further claim about the proper subjects of rights. 3 See International Institute for Environment and Development, “Opinion: World Summit on Sustainable Development” (May 2001), http://www.iied.org/; ANPED (Northern Alliance for Sustainability), “Environmental and Human Rights—A new approach to sustainable development,” www.anped.org. For legal analyses of various aspects of the question of environmental human rights, see Boyle and Anderson, 1996. 4 Field tests should be completed by 2005. See Florence Wambugu’s presentation (in PowerPoint) from Tufts University’s Conference, “Agricultural Biotechnology: The Road to Improved Nutrition & Increased Production?” (November 1-2, 2001) at http://nutrition.tufts.edu/conted/agri_biotech/presentations.shtml. 5 Context is essential here. Biotechnology may offer unique benefits from a human rights perspective, given current international social and political conditions. Under different conditions—for example, if an effective system of international redistribution of wealth were available— biotechnology might become less promising, because such changes might eliminate some of the more serious burdens of hunger in especially poor regions of the world.

153 Kristen Hessler ___________________________________________________________

References ANPED (Northern Alliance for Sustainability) (n.d.), “Environmental and Human Rights—A new approach to sustainable development,” www.anped.org. Boyle, A. and M. Anderson. (1996), Human rights approaches to environmental protection. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Cranston, M. (1973), What are human rights? New York: Taplinger Publishing. Fumento, M. (2001), ‘Golden rice: a golden chance for the underdeveloped world,’ American Outlook, http://www.fumento.com/goldenrice.html. International Institute for Environment and Development (2001), Opinion: world summit on sustainable development, http://www.iied.org/ Kelley, D. (1998), A life of one’s own: individual rights and the welfare state. Washington, DC: Cato Institute. Kimbrell, A. (1998), ‘Why biotechnology and high-tech agriculture cannot feed the world’, The Ecologist, 28: 294-8. Marks, S. (1981), ‘Emerging human rights: a new generation for the 1980’s?’ Rutgers Law Review, 33: 439-52. Wambugu, F (2001), “Agricultural biotechnology: the road to improved nutrition and increased production?” (November 1-2, 2001), presentation (in PowerPoint) from Tufts University’s Conference at http://nutrition.tufts.edu/conted/agri_biotech/presentations.shtml. Wellman, C. (1999), The proliferation of rights: moral progress or empty rhetoric? Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Wolfenbarger, L. and P. Phifer. (2000), ‘the ecological risks and benefits of genetically engineered plants’, Science 290: 2088-93.


Contrast is a Must! The Architect as Environmentalist: High-density Development as an Ecological Device in the Battle for the Preservation of Valuable Landscapes and Urban Settings using the Built Environment as a Departure Point for Ecology

TANGRAM Architekten: ir. Charlotte ten Dijke, drs Indira van ’t Klooster and ir. Bart Mispelblom Beyer

1.

Introduction

With 382 inhabitants per km2, the Netherlands is one of the most densely populated countries in Western Europe. It is less densely populated than Taiwan or South Korea, but more densely populated than, for example, Japan or India (http://www.odci.gov/cia/publications/ factbook). This high population density is chiefly due to the fact that the Netherlands has very few large-scale, unspoilt nature areas. Virtually every square millimetre is in use. Nevertheless, some 550,000 new dwellings will have to be built over the next eight years. The growing realization that we cannot continue to concrete over vacant land is increasingly resulting in buildings in which dual land use and a mix of functions are integrated. Increasing the density of the existing urban structures is now essential in order to preserve the country's scarce nature and to increase the contrast between unbuilt and built-up areas. In practice, this is giving rise to new typologies, which do not automatically fit into existing frameworks. The design task now comprises not only an architectural scheme, but also involves a variety of sub-areas that is outside the range of the architect or urban designer. TANGRAM Architekten is carrying out research into the possibilities and consequences of high-density development, both in theory and in practice. A book about high-density development will appear in Spring 2003. In addition, our office is working at various locations on high to very high-density schemes. Our departurepoint is not the maximization of density, but rather the creation of attractive living, working and social environments with high, but acceptable building densities.

The Architect as Environmentalist 156 ___________________________________________________________ 2. The Dutch Situation in a Nutshell A. Space – uses and needs. -

16 million people live in the Netherlands on 41,532 km2 (382 people per km2) 46% of the population lives in the Randstad the Randstad comprises 24% of the Netherlands in the Randstad the population density is 869 people per square kilometre more than twice as high as anywhere else in Holland locally, mostly in Amsterdam and Rotterdam the population density can be more than 10,000 per square kilometre the need for space is greatest in the western part of the Netherlands; between 2000 and 2010 549 000 dwellings will have to be built to meet Dutch housing needs, 50% of these will have to be built in the Randstad.

Thus most dwellings will have to be built in the most densely populated area of the Netherlands; the Randstad. B. Population: expected changes. -

-

in 2030 18 million people will live in Holland the percentage of senior people, (over 65 years old), will rise from 13% in 2000 to 22% in 2030 which will result in an increasing need for combined health care and housing In 2020 37% of the population will be single and 30% of households will consist of couples without children 40% of all single people will live in the big cities.

Thus housing provision in coming years will have to satisfy the needs of an increasing number of single people (both young and old). Most of these single people will live in cities. C. Housing needs. -

-

there are more houses for rent outside cities than are needed, the greatest shortages are for dwellings in the countryside and dwellings in the city there’s a shortage of expensive single family housing

TANGRAM Architekten 157 ___________________________________________________________ -

-

the quantity of dwellings in semi-urban areas will rise to 26.8% between 2000 and 2010 while the quantity of dwellings city centres will only rise by 6.1% the desire to move to housing outside the city decreases when people in cities have recreational facilities.

Thus the demand for housing (in both quality and quantity) doesn’t correlate with the supply. Demand is greatest for more expensive one family housing. There are too many houses for rent just outside the city centre and no action is taken to diminish this supply. Demand for housing in city centres (which are perfect high density locations) lags behind the demand for single households. Over the next ten years, most new dwellings need to be built in the most densely populated area of the Netherlands, the Randstad (Ministry of Housing, Urban Planning and Environment, 2000, Regio Randstad, 2001). The demand for housing in the coming years is largely due to an increase in the number of single-person households (both young and the elderly). A large proportion of these single-person households are in the city. The demand (as regards type and quantity) is not synchronous with the supply. The demand is greatest for more expensive single-family owner-occupied dwellings. There will be a surplus of rented dwellings just outside the city centre (housing barracks), which has not been anticipated. The increase in the number of dwellings in city centres (the high density locations par excellence) is insufficient, relatively and in relation to the demand (from single persons). 3.

The Contrasted Theory of TANGRAM Architekten

The Netherlands is changing rapidly and this changeability is not new. The difference with the past, however, lies in the turnover rate and the quantity and diversity of requirements; ever more and ever faster. In the meantime, the government’s endeavour to decentralise is shown in a series of policy documents. These intentions are good. For example, the four main ministries have signed the second architecture memorandum. So the ministries of Housing, Culture, Agriculture and Infrastructure are involved in formulating policy together. Now that the country is full 1 , future building tasks need to be carefully incorporated into the existing structure. That is not straightforward. An inventory by the minister of Housing, Urban Planning and Environment) of the spatial needs of his fellow-ministers resulted in the conclusion that a piece of land the size of the province of South Holland was needed to meet all these demands. This land area does not

The Architect as Environmentalist 158 ___________________________________________________________ exist and we do not really want to encroach any further on the existing rural landscape. Compaction of the existing urban area is therefore necessary. The intensification of the built environment needs to ensure that the qualities of the relatively open landscape can be preserved. The restructuring and intensification of the city that this will entail is not the most favourable form of building financially. Urban land prices are high, so it is necessary to make optimum use of the opportunities that exist. The aim will be to develop an optimal living environment, driven by a sizeable spatial need. But what will our country look like then? Does the existing building development provide space for high-density development? As far back as 1969, the well-known Dutch architect Piet Blom remarked: We live in an overpopulated country. If you were to ask a blind person, what do you imagine that to be like?, they would answer: ‘full, varied, incredibly vibrant, dynamic, a really marvellous, intoxicating chaos of people and shapes, countless forms of life and their expression, embarrassing, vulgar cities full of urban forms.’ None of that, there is silence, concealment, quietude, chilly glass aesthetics, extreme circumspection, fearful desolation, no multiplicity of forms, styles, but rather formalism and repetition millions of square kilometres in size (Blom, 1969). We share this abhorrence of the current monotony, which has scarcely changed over the past thirty years. The motivation behind our interest in high-density building is dissatisfaction. In the Netherlands, more and more natural and historic landscapes are being given over to development. The difference between city and countryside is sometimes scarcely perceptible. As a result our country is becoming tedious, dull and mediocre. In addition, there is growing criticism of the increase in new building sites at city borders. However hard architects try to do their best, they never seem to be successful. These peripheral districts are monotonous, one-sided, so cramped one cannot sit in the garden, but too sparsely developed to be able to provide good facilities. There are hardly any shopping centres, public transport is only being provided slowly or not at all. There is little, if any, employment, in short: this is not the scenario for a sustainable future. Property developers, who for years have tried to have us believe that this is the ideal image, are increasingly losing

TANGRAM Architekten 159 ___________________________________________________________ out. The template of 40 dwellings per hectare, which is the standard in recent expansion plans, seems to have had its day. Moreover, lifestyles are changing: the home is increasingly the central operating base, more and more people are working from home and that, too, requires a different approach to housing. High-density development provides new points of departure. The solution we advocate is one of contrast between open and closed. This is possible by, on the one hand, increasing the density of building development in the city (and upgrading the level of facilities) and, on the other hand, by creating more and better space (emptiness) outside the city. This means that, on the one hand, more attention needs to be given to the increasing densities in existing cities, and on the other hand to keeping the existing landscape open. 4. Is it Possible to Build at Higher Densities: Government Policy? A.

Government policy in general. Can urban density be set as a deliberate target? Should it be? Is it happening?' What plans or general ideas could add legitimacy to a particular level of urban density? [...]. In many of the world's conurbations, density is tending to become one of the explicit objectives of urban intervention in particular by local public authorities, who in certain cases wish to increase the residential density of city centres and, in others, to reduce the existing level (Langumier, 1994, 31).

Governments have an important pioneering role in the debate about whether or not to build at high densities and they must accept their responsibilities in this area. The problem is too important to leave to the market place and a long-term policy is desirable. So densities must be set as precise, deliberate targets. Mostly, however, the target is to increase density rather than to reduce it. B. Dutch government policy with regard to the preservation of the existing landscape. In the Netherlands, there has been a response to this appeal has been for decades. Since 1978 there has been an active compact city policy aimed at stimulating new developments in and on the periphery of major

The Architect as Environmentalist 160 ___________________________________________________________ cities and limiting the expansion of village centres or in new areas. The scarcity of unspoilt nature also presents the government with problems. Many policy documents mention the importance of preserving or strengthening the identity of the landscape, including the Green Heart in the centre of the Randstad. The emotional and cultural significance of the landscape and the built environment is changing. Conversely, cities look more like urbanized landscapes than compact cities. What is paradoxical, however, is that as the significance of agricultural land decreases (the agricultural sector is decreasing in size), the importance of that same piece of land as landscape increases. What is significant now is the cultural and historical, the preservation of which costs a great deal of government money (Coeterier, 2000). This cost is apparent, for example, in the government's frantic attempts to keep the Green Heart intact. While billions are being spent on constructing the projected infrastructure (HSL, railway lines, motorways) underground through the Green Heart while above ground, more and more land is gradually being colonized. Economic interests underlie the destruction of the unspoilt landscape. It is difficult therefore to adapt regulations to the new policy. Companies often have good reasons not to locate in the city. Legislation makes life difficult for many companies. The environmental pollution act, zoning plans and the fire service licences, for example, make it difficult for both large and small companies to locate in the city. Conversely, existing companies are regularly being legally forced to relocate by the new residents of high-density locations. Harmonization of local and national policy is thus essential, certainly with regard to regulations at the local level. However, the various ministries also stand in each other's way sometimes. While one ministry calls for the preservation of the countryside the other lobbies for new railway lines in order to combat increasing car traffic. Under the guise of the same policy (preservation of the landscape, prevention of further environmental pollution by cars), the policy to save the landscape is thwarted. C. Dutch government policy with regard to increasing the density of the existing urban area. In the last government report on the future layout of the Netherlands (the Fifth Report on Spatial Planning), the Cabinet designated the areas where most of the urbanization is to be realized over the next twenty years. More than two thirds of the new dwellings and 75 per cent of new jobs are to be located in these areas. In addition, seven national landscapes have been designated within which no further development will take place. The cabinet is allowing for an increase in the population to

TANGRAM Architekten 161 ___________________________________________________________ approximately 18 million inhabitants in 2030. Fifty per cent of the new dwellings have to be built in existing urban areas. That is some 225,000 dwellings, of which approximately 50,000 will be built in Amsterdam and some 65,000 in Almere (Ministry of Housing, Urban Planning and Environment, 2001). The government hopes that by intensifying and restructuring existing developments it can prevent further encroachment on open areas. The Ministry of Housing, Urban Planning and Environment has earmarked 450 million Euros for the implementation of this programme up until 2010. Most of the new dwellings in the existing urban areas are to be built in the northern part of the Randstad. TANGRAM Architekten is already working on fleshing out this task in various locations. Another problem is that at the local scale there are no regulations (for example, in the Building Decree or the Housing Act) for stimulating high-density development. Regulations are needed which result in good exterior spaces for dwellings, regulations which make the flat roof accessible for dual use, regulations which promote the collective use of space and a mixture of functions, regulations which guarantee the flexibility of the carcass and interior layout (as a result of which people would move house less frequently and the housing stock would not date so fast). In high-density living, the importance of such matters increases, but supporting legislation lags behind. D.

The measurement of high-density

The search for optimal density is highly ideological (Merlin, 1994). It is difficult to capture density in a formula, although it has often been attempted (see the contributions from Adams, Wilson, Turnbull, Grimaud and Clark et al.,. in Fouchier and Merlin, 1994). Scientists have tried to represent density in a primarily economic model (land yield versus costs). For our purposes this is inadequate, because we are mainly interested in the social, architectural and cultural implications of density. Of course, it is not the case that building densities have never been expressed quantitatively. For example, in the Fourth Report on Spatial Planning, density was indicated by the number of dwellings per hectare. This is a method much used by the government and market players and can give an instant, lucid impression of housing density. When, however, other functions than just the residential are present in an area, these are not taken into account in this method. In existing urban areas in particular, the number of dwellings per hectare does not produce a complete picture and sometimes it produces a distorted picture. In Amsterdam a method of expressing the quantifiable aspects of optimisation has been sought.

The Architect as Environmentalist 162 ___________________________________________________________ Amsterdam City Council has played a leading role in this search (Zanen, 2001; http://www.dro.amsterdam.nl/eng/01dro/index.html). The city has a special department that collects information about intensification and stimulates new developments. Permeta Architecten is also very involved in this field (Berghauser Pont and Haupt, 2001). Both Amsterdam and Permeta base their methods of measurement on the floor space index (FSI) that shows the relationship between total floor space and the ground area. In effect, this density figure expresses the average number of storeys over the entire planning area. This method is highly effective and the more serious attempts to chart the built environment in terms of density are based on it. 5.

Psychological and Cultural Aspects: How do People Experience High-density Living?

A. The relationship between high density and health in the Netherlands High density has negative connotations. It is associated with, for example, poverty, crime, disease and even death. The age-old rather hostile attitude towards the city (disease, poverty, lack of hygiene) caused scientists in the 1920s to look for connections between pathological abnormalities in people and urban conditions. Since the 1970s, when the fear of an explosion in world population first arose, many researchers have published findings that suggest that high-density living is dangerous, in order to point out some of the dangers associated with major increases in population. The first known study into the effects of high-density living in the Netherlands was by Levy, a Dutch researcher at the University of Chicago, who was commissioned to do this study by the Dutch government in 1975 (Levy, 1975). His findings did not show any serious negative effects of high-density living, at least not in the Netherlands. According to Levy, higher income groups in the Netherlands are more likely to live in high-density developments than anywhere else in the world, but their dwellings are far more spacious than the average dwelling (Saegart, 1978). Thus in the Netherlands there is scarcely any connection between high-density housing and pathological abnormalities, which suggests that the size of dwellings is related to better health and well being. However, it should not be forgotten that there is a tendency in the Netherlands towards housing people with psychological problems in special accommodation. Levy's research shows that it is not so much the presence of large numbers of people that causes stress, but rather the

TANGRAM Architekten 163 ___________________________________________________________ unpredictability of behaviour and people’s response to it. Levy draws the following conclusions: - small cities are less stressful than large cities, because people know more people. - homogenous communities are less stressful than heterogeneous communities, because a high rate of moving house requires considerable adaptation - higher income groups are less stressed than lower income groups because they have more opportunities to escape crowds (first-class travel, more holidays, larger dwellings) (Levy, 1975). B.

Architectural devices to make high-density living more pleasant.

Very little research has been done into the relationship between architecture and high density. Saegart (1978) however has come up with some ways to improve the high-density environment based on sociological research. The most important but least concrete improvement is the provision of adequate resources in order to help residents to deal flexibly with the numerous and complex demands facing them in high-density situations. This means that as soon as a building or living environment is completed, money should be set aside for the registration of events, the evaluation of experiences and the introduction of modifications at a later stage. The fact is that the complexity of such systems makes it impossible to assess all situations optimally in advance. Moreover high density requires the simplification of stimuli, information and decision-making. This can be achieved simply by means of a clear structure for the physical environment. Such adjustments do, of course, have consequences for the social structure and norms and value systems in places where these manifest themselves and for the people who are affected by them. Buildings and areas must be composed of manageable dimensions and must provide flexible screens in order to prevent interaction with groups or individuals. And finally residents living in high-density developments must have access to low-density areas in the immediate vicinity (Saegart, 1978). C.

Ways in which people can personalize anonymous spaces.

Other sociological and environmental research has shown that people always personalize their immediate surroundings. Everyone is familiar with the phenomena: the famous deckchairs and towels, books on tables in libraries, coats over chairs, bags on adjoining seats in the train or bus. In the residential setting, too, one sees similar behaviour; plants in a

The Architect as Environmentalist 164 ___________________________________________________________ public corridor, posters near the lift, benches or chairs in a public square. As well as expressions of individual taste, these are also attempts to demarcate an area, to create space that others will not enter. In this way, a gradual transition is created between the private and the public domain. This principle can be applied to architecture. 6.

Architectural and Urban Aspects of High-density Development in the Netherlands, Based on all the Foregoing Arguments: The TANGRAM Theory

People desire privacy, optimal sunlight and a view in a friendly, safe setting, a parking space in front of their door, facilities and recreational opportunities in the immediate vicinity and easy accessibility. Every study points to the same conclusion; this is how people want to live. A frequently heard objection is that the Netherlands is not big enough to house everyone in such an ideal living environment. The idea that these goals cannot be realised in high-density developments that is one of the main reasons why high-density housing has such a bad image. Our office however is working on specific, concrete developments in which all these wishes can be realized in high housing densities. Potential objections to high-density living, such as lack of privacy, alienation, impersonality of the living environment and stress, are technically solvable in spatial and architectural design. Moreover, high-density housing offers interesting possibilities that meet today's living requirements: -

the presence of special facilities, such as communal spaces for the elderly and children's day- care centres; the possibility of greater control which increases the sense of security and a mix of lifestyles and composition of families.

But above all, high-density development requires a new spatial conceptualisation and the provision of perceptual storeys between private and public space. If the number of intermediate storeys is large and varied, freedom of dwelling and living is achieved, even for target groups who traditionally flee the city, such as families and the more affluent. Highdensity development requires a subtly designed demarcation between dwellings that leaves privacy intact. Building in higher densities requires a new approach to urban design and brings on new typologies of housing. In fact the differences between urban and architectural design disappears. The key to the realization of a pleasant compact living and working environment is the careful orchestration of a gradual transition between

TANGRAM Architekten 165 ___________________________________________________________ public and private creating buffer zones. Urban rooms - as we call them – are halfway along this scale and as important for the urban environment as the built area itself. This complete setting from public to private is the scenery for people’s social street life in high density surroundings. Furthermore it is very important to bring in a mix of other functions not just housing, to achieve a 24 hours occupation of the neighbourhood and create scope for better provision of facilities such as public transport. Some concrete examples, most of them built recently by our office will show how to different extents these demands have been met. Key issues are: housing mix of people and mix of functions, well designed transitions from urban street life to private house, privacy, light quality and the possibilities for social control. A.

Borneo Island (FSI: 0.81), by several architects.

In Amsterdam, a process of restructuring areas along the waterfront started ten years ago; at a density much higher then in new layouts areas elsewhere. One of these is Borneo Island – a development of 2500 houses – where an attempt was made to reach double the density compared to what we are used to in regular new towns. This project, built between 1995 and 2000 consists of beautiful houses with lots of privacy and good light quality inside, on a remarkable location in the city and was a commercial success. Java Island and Borneo Island have a housing density of 100 dwellings per hectare. Most of the dwellings have ground floor access. This is of course only possible due to the abundance of water surrounding the dwellings. The water and the view are compensatory factors. It does, though, require new dwelling typologies and these have been realized here. To a certain extent, these dwellings are highly valued; there is a great deal of privacy, indeed so much that it becomes anonymous living space. But there are problems. It’s almost completely monofunctional (only houses) – and therefore completely abandoned during the day. In the urban scheme there’s a sudden transition from the public space (main streets) to the private house. The small-scale urban layer – where people meet and children play (which we call urban rooms) is missing. Children play between parked cars in streets without parental control. This was designed as a neighbourhood for the dinkies (double income no kids). The problem is that they tend to have children as well. On the one hand, this type of plan is a valuable contribution to optimal land use in the city, on the other hand, it offers only a one-sided solutions, because the task is far more complex than simply the maximization of housing. We believe in the optimisation of density, not so much in the maximization of housing .

The Architect as Environmentalist 166 ___________________________________________________________ B.

IJburg, block 29 (FSI: 1.59) by TANGRAM Architects.

IJburg is the latest addition of 18,000 houses within the Amsterdam region on new land in the water near the centre. The first flow of 6000 dwellings is being developed now. On IJburg the aim was to realize an average density of approximately 65 dwellings per hectare. Moreover, an essential component was added to the high-density developments; a mix of functions. The higher the density, the greater the basis for special facilities in the neighbourhood. Not only shops and businesses, but also special local facilities such as child-care provision, flexible work places nearby, instead of in the home, meeting places for the elderly etc. Here, the positive aspects of high-density living are visible. TANGRAM are involved in two of the blocks. In one of them as coordinating architect: designing a micro urban scheme of 90 x 200 m within the overall grid scheme for the program of 200 houses, some business and office rooms, and provisions for medical and psychiatric functions. Furthermore, due to the housing programme, a strong mix of inhabitants will be attracted – housing for rent and for sale, from cheap to expensive, small and large in size. For the development of our block we considered this as an improvement – but not enough to ensure a good neighbourhood. So we tried to design an urban scheme that incorporates graduation from public to private – that is what missing on Borneo Island. Here, too, high-density gives rise to the need for a different urban design scheme and new dwelling typologies. Placing housing working and leisure close to each other improves the quality of the environment. People live in a large block in which public exterior spaces with traffic calming have been designed. The dwellings have ground floor access or are stacked alongside each other, with limited but good private space and a number of collective spaces in the block and urban rooms: buffers to soften the contrast between private and public. Our solution brings a matrix structure. The basic ingredient is the family house to which apartments are added. Thus the matrix brings the necessary density. Furthermore, it automatically creates the division between public and private. The public area can be considered as medium scale urban space – in collective use by inhabitants and accessible for others. The project is in its final development period and the building will start in 2003. Its most important features are: x x

outside - strong, heavy urban block fitting into the grid structure of the island as a whole gates - several gates, some only for pedestrians leading to the inner world, of the block, traffic calmed spaces (urban rooms),

TANGRAM Architekten 167 ___________________________________________________________

x x

most dwellings are have ground floor access (70%) with good private outside spaces, and a number of exterior collective spaces like gardens. cross sections - show the complexity of the scheme – double ground use for parking brings the need for creative solutions such as the ability to bring green and water into the urban space roof-surfaces - are used as well – giving the possibility of looking over dense surroundings towards the space around – and using every built square m² for actual functions.

We think IJburg will prove the possibility for high-density development and still make for a humane and pleasant built environment. But IJburg is not the end of the line. It is possible to go further, so increase density and still meet the demands. C.

Vondellaan, Utrecht by TANGRAM Architects (FSI: yet unknown).

In Utrecht, near the city centre, in a project with a combination of housing and other functions we placed a public pedestrian street with houses with ground floor access which enclose 67 apartments and maisonettes; maisonettes lie behind - looking over the apartments with gardens on their roofs. This semi ground-accessed typology opens up possibilities for some higher densities as shown on IJburg, for example in our project in Amsterdam-Noord. High-density living does not automatically mean apartment living. Designers, it seems, design apartments automatically. This is not good. A healthy city needs a wider variety of dwelling types. In Banne, in Amsterdam Noord, we are currently investigating how we can realize high-density development in parts of this neighbourhood in order to be able to realize low-rise dwellings elsewhere. We are doing this in a special type of building, with dwellings, shops and neighbourhood functions. There are a wide variety of dwelling types. Parking is outside the building. Work places are on the ground level, shopping beneath the block, local and sports facilities are situated throughout the building. This is a very high-density development strip (nearly twice the density in IJburg) nevertheless every dwelling has space, light and a view. D.

Dukaat (FSI: 1.47) by TANGRAM Architects.

Our project Dukaat in Amsterdam-West consists of a radical mix of public and private functions that - combined with the principle of

The Architect as Environmentalist 168 ___________________________________________________________ gradual transition - leads to a new urban high-density composition. In Dukaat where housing, a shopping centre, a school and local facilities have been incorporated in a high-density development the roof is an important space. On the roof is the covered delivery road. The entrance to the dwellings is on a raised, public street as a result of which, despite the high density you nevertheless experience a sense of space. Here, too, special dwelling types have been devised in order to make high quality, high-density living possible. In the original concept for this urban design, all of the functions were situated alongside each other, as a result of which there was no public space. By building the gymnasium below ground level and by stacking other functions, less space needed to be used, which has benefited public space. Five huge portals play an important role (as a means of access and demarcation) for a second street level of public space. In short: even on a small scale, increasing the contrast between built-up and unbuilt areas gives rise to new, interesting and differentiated space, in which there is greater variation and choice for residents, while in addition more public space is available. This is an important development for the existing city. A clever mix of functions and dual land use can produce more public space not less! (Het Parool, 15 October, 2001). E.

Costs.

Costs are only partly connected with the problems of highdensity developments. Good high density plans offer sufficient compensation for living closer together in more complex ways than in regular expansion projects. This means that more built parking, more variety, less repetition and bigger dwellings are needed. In short, higher building costs, in which we must invest, whether we like it or not. It is clear that this type of plan results in a higher capital outlay for society. The costs are carried by the future users, the council (for example, by accepting lower land costs) or central governments who stimulate this type of development as part of addressing the national interest in spatial planning. This is the stark choice that will have to be made. What is absolutely certain is that we must think within a framework of increasing density in combination with providing variety and quality. 7.

Conclusion

The Netherlands is full, but we still need 549,000 new dwellings, and they need to be built in the most densely populated part of the country, the Randstad. We must, therefore, radically increase the density of future developments. Furthermore, we can no longer use one solution. Recent

TANGRAM Architekten 169 ___________________________________________________________ expansion projects have not resolved the problem. Large-scale development that does not categorically and unequivocally opt for contrast must no longer be allowed. A maximum contrast between the built-up and the unbuilt environment is necessary in order to preserve or even increase the qualities of both. The need for strong contrast forces us to focus on the scarce public space in the city and the scarce built objects in green space. The government pursues such a policy at a national level, with varying success, but fails primarily at the local level (in zoning plans) and in implementation (regulations for the construction industry). The negative connotations of high-density living are a consequence of a traditional aversion to the city and environmental issues and urban planning in the sixties and seventies where anonymity, crime and decay predominated. People's needs (peace and quiet, security, privacy and the proximity of green space, and cultural and commercial facilities) can, however, be easily realized at high densities. This solution does however require a new approach to the city and a new typology. In the city, an infill rich in contrast is created by focusing on the emptiness remaining in between high-density developments. Public space must function as a system of urban rooms and attention needs to be focused on the realization of the high quality of these spaces. The key to the realization of a pleasant, compact living and working environment is the careful orchestration of a gradual transition between private and public space. The urban rooms lie half way along this scale. The Dukaat project and the project on IJburg by TANGRAM Architects show what this can look like in practice. The costs this involves are only partly connected with the problem of increasing density. The desired variety and variation and underground parking result in a higher quality built environment. If this is achieved, it is a benefit, not only for residents, market players and the council, but also for the environmental movement and people’s (recreational) experience. In short, for society as a whole.

Notes 1

‘Full’ of course is relative. Prof. Auke van der Woud reminds us of a document dated from 1849 when 3 million people lived in the

The Architect as Environmentalist 170 ___________________________________________________________

Netherlands, that states: “It is the general belief that our country is overcrowded’ (Baart, Metz, and Ruimschotel, 2000, 44-45).

References Baart, T., T. Metz and T. Ruimschotel (2000), Atlas van de verandering: Nederland herschikt. Rotterdam: NAi Uitgevers. Berghauser Pont, M. and P. Haupt (2001) ‘Spacemate’, Stedenbouw en ruimtelijke ordening. Blom, P. (1969), in: Architecten citatabase. http://www.indira.nl Coeterier, J.F. (ed.) (2000), Hoe beleven wij onze omgeving. 192 e.v. Zanen, K. van (ed.) (2001), Meten met twee maten: referentieplannen, bebouwingsintensiteit, dienst Ruimtelijke Ordening Amsterdam (Physical Planning Department), Available at http://www.dro.amsterdam.nl/eng/01dro/index.html Het Parool (2001), ‘Minder openbare ruimte door verdichting’, (15 October). Langumier, J. F. (1994.), ‘High urban densities: a solution for our cities?’ . in: V. Fouchier and P Merlin. (eds.) Consulate General of France: Hong Kong. Levy, L. (1975), ‘Population impaction, health and social adaptation. A study of the effect of population density on health and social adaptation in the Netherlands’, Report no. 14 uitgebracht ten behoeve van de Staatscommissie Bevolkingsvraagstuk, Chicago: University of Illinois at the Medical Centre. Merlin, P. (1994) ‘High urban densities: a solution for our cities?’ in: V. Fouchier and P Merlin. (eds.) Consulate General of France: Hong Kong. Ministry of Housing, Urban Planning and Environment, (2000), Mensen, wensen, wonen: wonen in de 21e eeuw. Den Haag: SDU Uitgeverij.

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Ministry of Housing, Urban Planning and Environment (2001), Electronic press release, date 28 November 2001, see also: http://www.vrom.nl. Regio Randstad (2001), Key figures 1999-2000. The Randstad. Saegart, S. (1978) in: A. Baum, and Y.M. Epstein, (eds.) Human response to crowding: high density environments: their personal and social consequences, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Ass. Publishers, Hillsdale.


Section E Education, Environmental Justice, Global Citizenship and Deep Ecology


Education for Sustainable Development as Applied Global Citizenship and Environmental Justice

Tony Shallcross and John Robinson 1. Active Citizenship is at the Core of Environmental Education and Education for Sustainable Development

To be a philosopher is not merely to have subtle thoughts, nor even to found a school, but so to love wisdom as to live according to its dictates, a life of simplicity, independence, magnanimity, and trust. It is to solve some of the problems of life, not only theoretically but also practically (Thoreau, 1996, p.17). Definitions of environmental education (EE) and education for sustainable development (ESD) consistently contain commitments to changing values, attitudes and actions (UNESCO, 1978, UNESCO 1997). In selecting new, more sustainable lifestyles we are making choices as global citizens. But we should not make the mistaken assumption that new lifestyles necessarily require more knowledge and/or changed values. The assumption that if we know that there is an environmental crisis on the planet we will, as global and/or local citizens act for its resolution is a deficient educational model (Sterling, 2001). Knowledge is necessary but not sufficient to ensure global citizenship. But neither are values sufficient to ensure that we will act in environmentally just ways. Aristotle recognised that actions and values are not always congruent. Posch (1993) describes the failure to behave virtuously as a discordance between espoused values and values in action. Individuals or organisations may not always be aware of such discordance; it may only become apparent through external illumination when for example concepts such as justice and citizenship are applied evaluatively to the practice of individual teachers and/or their educational institutions. Research shows that many students in initial teacher education (ITE) hold pro-environmental values, but do not always act concordantly with these

Education for Sustainable Development 176 _______________________________________________________________ values, for a variety of reasons (Shallcross and Wilkinson, 1996). Therefore the neglect of environmentally sustainable actions may not always result from inappropriate values, it may indicate the need for education to empower, to develop conscientisation (Freire, 1972) or action competence (Jensen, 1995). The promotion of such action competence is a crucial but neglected feature of the education of teachers and perhaps higher education (HE) programmes in general (Shallcross and Wilkinson, 1998). By teaching the knowledge, theory and values of ESD while neglecting to promote institutional actions that are congruent with these cognitive messages education may be socialising hypocrisy by appearing to accept inconsistent behaviour as normal. Pupils are quick to spot this neglect when institutions address what ought to be done to promote sustainable lifestyles in the green curriculum but subsequently fail to develop institutional practices that cohere with these espoused values. This neglect leads pupils to question the integrity of their teachers (Titan, 1994) constituting a serious caution for the cognitive approach that so dominates current ESD provision in formal education. So EE and ESD often lack authenticity because while they are implicitly concerned with educating pupils to be tomorrow’s change agents they ignore the action needed to address immediate geographical and temporal problems (Uzzell et al., 1994). In citizenship terms this is a view of pupils as citizens in waiting rather than presently active citizens (Alderson, 2000). 2.

Radical Environmental Philosophies and Education

Knowledge and values clearly influences action. Some schools of environmental philosophy, such as social ecology and ecofeminism, make a virtue of their integration of social and ecological knowledge and values. But these philosophies have a strong anthropocentric vein in stressing the achievement of social justice as a prerequisite for realising environmental justice (Baugh, 1990, Salleh, 1993, Sessions, 1995). Social ecology and ecofeminism argue that the domination of some humans by others, on gender, class, ethnic or other grounds is a fundamental cause of the human exploitation of nature. Ecologically destructive practices result from an unbalanced society driven by a masculine competitive analytic (Capra, 1982). So social justice comes first in the quest for environmental justice. Therefore from the social perspective the eradication of masculine or other types forms of social dominance must precede the reversal of ecological

Tony Shallcross and John Robinson 177 _______________________________________________________________ destruction and the achievement of ecological justice. Petersen and Petersen, (1996) argue that sexism is domination’s most significant practice, not because it is the basis of all other oppressions, but because it is the practice that most people are socialised to accept by encountering it as exploiter or exploited. Warren (1990) suggests that the oppression of women is linked to three other types of oppression: racism, class exploitation and ecological destruction. So we cannot ignore the social dimension of sustainability. ‘Unless people learn how to recognize the social/personal infrastructure of labor that sustains them daily, a paradigm shift is not likely’ (Salleh, 1993, 91). Other radical environmentalist philosophies, particularly deep ecology, while recognising the importance of social issues believe that ecofeminism promotes an essentialist genetic doctrine of difference and otherness between men and women and illustrates an anthropocentric preoccupation with interhuman relationships which by obscuring our relationships with the nonhuman world (Fox, 1995) obfuscates environmental justice. While calling for structural change in social, economic and political institutions (see Table 1), supporters of deep ecology believe that human relationships with nature can be transformed without the prior or parallel resolution of some of the more exploitative aspects of the human condition, desirable though the eradication of such social exploitation is. Thus there are different models of global citizenship implicit in radical environmental philosophies. On the one hand there is the view that realising social justice is a prerequisite for environmental justice whereas supporters of deep ecology argue that it is possible address ecological justice first but generally consider it to be desirable to address the social and ecological aspects of environmental justice in tandem. As a movement deep ecology is distinguished by its integration of a number of characteristics (see Table 1); a relational total field image, ecospheric egalitarianism, the principles of diversity and symbiosis, an anticlass posture, the fight against pollution and resource depletion, local autonomy and decentralisation and the recognition of complexity rather than the creation of complication (Naess, 1995a, Naess, 1995b). The integrated nature of these strands in deep ecology gives it natural, spiritual and sociopolitical applications (Naess, 1995c) denying the charge that it is a fundamentally ecological based philosophy. . Most importantly deep ecology is a movement that takes an ecocentric perspective on values and codes of action.

Education for Sustainable Development 178 _______________________________________________________________ Table 1: The Eight Point Platform of Deep Ecology (Chamberlin, 1997). No. 1

2 3 4

5 6

7

8

Description The well-being and flourishing of human and nonhuman life on Earth have value in themselves (synonyms: intrinsic value, inherent value). These values are independent of the usefulness of the non-human world for human purposes. Richness and diversity of life forms contribute to the realization of these values and are also values in themselves. Humans have no right to reduce this richness and diversity except to satisfy vital needs. The flourishing of human life and cultures is compatible with a substantial decrease of the human population. The flourishing of nonhuman life requires such a decrease. Present human interference with the nonhuman world is excessive, and the situation is rapidly worsening. Policies must therefore be changed. These policies affect basic economic, technological, and ideological structures. The resulting state of affairs will be deeply different from the present. The ideological change is mainly that of appreciating life quality (dwelling in situations of inherent value) rather than adhering to an increasingly higher standard of living. There will be a profound awareness of the difference between big and great. Those who subscribe to the foregoing points have an obligation directly or indirectly to try to implement the necessary changes.

But perhaps what is most important is to search for a more hospitable narrative (Derrida, 2001); the recognition of the themes of agreement in radical environmentalism. Deep ecologists, like most ecofeminists and social ecologists are opposed to grand narratives and monolithic ideologies (Zimmerman, 1994). Ecofeminism, social ecology and deep ecology are antistrong anthropocentrism (Sosa, 1996); they require that sustainability education (SE) transforms educational practice and ultimately eradicates social and ecological domination. The nature of the story used to justify this

Tony Shallcross and John Robinson 179 _______________________________________________________________ transformation, be it feminist, social or ecological will obviously affect the formulation of journeys towards environmental justice and global citizenship and the implementation of any theory of action. It is to this travel narrative we will now turn. In doing so we want to draw on Derrida again: “[j]ustice is not right; it is that which attempts, nonetheless, to produce a new right. And to do so it is necessary, first, to take the context into account and then, at a given moment, to transform it radically. (But such a justice) cannot be preannounced … it is incalculable … it is a future waiting to be received … in which the context is held to account … (this is our responsibility)” (2001, pp. 17, 21, 23, and 16). 3.

Radical Environmental Philosophies and Education

There are at least five barriers that arise within the current dominant Western social paradigm in attempting to base formal educational provision for EE/ESD on the differing, ultimate values of diverse radical environmental philosophies, such as ecofeminism, social ecology or deep ecology; 1.

The internecine uncivil warfare that takes place between these positions when the issues that separate these positions, the inhospitable narratives and debates, become the focus rather than areas of agreement. This adversarial approach results in rejection, apathy or dependency among educational practitioners (Argyris and Schon, 1996).

2.

Viewed from the perspective of theories and models of educational change the view that these visions or ideals are capable of realisation is a fallacious view. Change has to be recognised as a journey not a destination. Storying the future is just that, a story, and like any story it may come true and it may not. Some potential futures stories are probable, some preferred.

3.

The disempowering effect of visions that blind. Some blind because, although they are desirable they appear impossible to achieve because they present people with visions too radically different from their taken for granted, second nature world (the dominant Western social

Education for Sustainable Development 180 _______________________________________________________________ paradigm). Others blind because they are based on a psychology that vilifies those whom it seeks to convert. 4.

The detheorising of teachers as their freedom is increasingly circumscribed by a culture based on modernist economies of performance (Stronach et al., 2001) that requires teachers and school to obey orders and rewards those who appear to obey orders the best.

5.

The way in which the adversariality of position taking is exemplified through the symbolic languages of difference, otherising and antimonies.

In all, these problems give rise to an oppressive framework which is rooted in an embryonic environmental tyranny and which implies hierarchal ways of thinking about the environment and EE/ESD. It is not the concept of hierarchy itself that is problematic, but the value humans place on the hierarchies that they construct that is the issue (Naess, 1995a, Petersen and Petersen, 1996). Thus the ecocentric stance taken by deep ecology that argues for the recognition of the equal and intrinsic value in the natural world may be essential to the achievement of sustainable lifestyles that lead us to live more lightly on the planet by recognising the inherent value in all of nature and our responsibility for it. Educations that promote global citizenship, and environmental justice by journeying towards ecocentricity and away from assumptions of the sole or greater value of humanity appear critical. But deep ecology, while arguing that self-realisation of the ecocentric, deeper and wider human interconnectedness with the nonhuman world is the key to sustainable lifestyles, has relatively little to say about what a formal education in self realisation might look like. What might be the educational paths to ecocentric self-realisation? First hand experience of nature through wilderness and outdoor education plays a very significant role in developing such an ecological sensibility (Greenway, 1995, Palmer and Suggate, 1996, Duenkel and Henderson, 1997, Hart, 1998). But wilderness is a leaderless teacher; there, no one guides us through change (Greenway, 1995) and it may be a culturally specific route to self-realisation that is particularly strong in Anglo-Saxon cultures (Palmer, 1999). Therefore there is a danger that while personally effective, such experiences are socially and culturally exclusive and thereby limited in their

Tony Shallcross and John Robinson 181 _______________________________________________________________ wider social and educational impact. Others such as Naess (1989) argue that self-realisation is part of our maturation as human beings as much as it is part of our learning. But is the ecological sensibility or consciousness that results from self-realisation a form of cognitive environmental awareness with all the associated weaknesses of such a position? Does maturation, in psychological terms, mean modified Piagetian stage theory? Or does maturation mean a realisation that is a concomitant of an evolving consciousness? Does an evolving consciousness of wider identification begin with family and spread through a process of biological and cultural evolution? In this case selfrealisation should occur automatically, but it is obvious from the current environmental crisis that it does not. If self-realisation derives from cosmological identification is cosmology in part epistemological and therefore amenable to formal cognitive education? If the only personal transformations that occur arise from within ourselves (Greenway, 1995) are these solely ontological, involving a serendipitous and different sense of what it is to be and not accretively developmental? If they are developmental what phenomena or experiences create this new sense of self? If so what role is there for formal education in this essentially cultural process? Ecocentric philosophies in general and deep ecology in particular fail to answer most of these profound educational questions. They have little to say about formal education's role in solving the world's environmental problems and achieving sustainable lifestyles within the tenets of the radical environmental movement. Sterba (1994) and Dower (1989) are among the few environmental philosophers to recognise the centrality of formal education to this process. Although deep ecology acknowledges the significance of community and structural perspectives in the realisation of environmental justice, it regards personal psychological development as the main path to ecocentric viewpoints, neglecting to ask how structured educational experience might promote such awareness. As such, this apparently serendipitous route to self-realisation (Harding, 1997) appears largely irrelevant to formal education’s structured approaches. Instead the selfrealisation appears to rely on a process of sudden conversion on the road to Damscus or opportune learning (Zimmerman, 1994) or maturation (Naess, 1989). So, while not rejecting self-realisation as an ultimate norm and a valuable process on which sustainable environmental action can be based, the

Education for Sustainable Development 182 _______________________________________________________________ critical question is how sufficient people develop the self-realisation that will ensure that actions become societally sustainable? 4.

Practising what we Teach: Whole Institution Approaches

The most promising formal educational route on the journey to sustainable lifestyles appears to reside not in education for sustainable development but in education as sustainability (Foster, 2001) or sustainability education (SE) through whole institution approaches. This is not education that is just about citizenship but education as active global citizenship in which environmental justice manifests itself in across the life of the school (Figure 1). In simple terms whole institution approaches mean practising what we teach by minimising the gaps between espoused values and values in action (Posch 1993) through the integration of formal and non-formal curricula. This is education as second nature, as a way of life. Posch (1999) describes whole institution approaches as: ‘shaping our interaction with the environment in an intellectual, material, spatial, social and emotional sense to achieve a lasting/sustainable quality of life for all' (pp.341-2). These approaches integrate pedagogy, with the social/organisational and technical/economic aspects of school practice (Posch, 1999). Orr (1994) argues that an ecological education has to transform; educational buildings, how education institutions work, the substance and processes of the formal curriculum and the purposes of learning. But all these prescriptions omit the evaluation and research that are integral to whole institution formulations and when added, (Figure 1) complete a plan, do, review cycle in ESD (Rauch, 2000). Figure 1: The Five Strands of a Whole School Approach to ESD. 4. Self-evaluation and Action Research.

1. Formal Curriculum and Pedagogy.

5. Community Links.

2. Institutional Culture and Ethos: Social and Organisational Aspects.

3. Institutional Practice: Technical and Economic Aspects.

Tony Shallcross and John Robinson 183 _______________________________________________________________ Thus whole institution approaches to SE involve the development of schools not only pedagogically and in curriculum terms but also organisationally and institutionally. Whole institution approaches are rooted in the concept of education as process based through, pupil participation (Hart, 1997), democratic approaches, collaborative cultures, mediated through expressing global citizenship through locally derived and decided outcomes that relate to authentic issues in for example environmental justice. SE is not a behaviourist education that seeks to achieve outcomes predetermined by those with power in education who are frequently not teachers and very rarely pupils. Instead, this is an education rooted in democracy and cooperative relationships between municipality, community, teachers and parents. Pedagogy emphasises talking which enables pupils to construct their own meanings and develop a sense of identity through social interaction. The curriculum is neither prescribed nor delivered. SE has implications for practice in each of the five strands in Figure 1. SE will not work without the formal curriculum (Beane and Apple, 1999). But it is crucial is that what is learned in classrooms is implemented in the institutional practice and social and organisational lives of the school and perhaps, more importantly from the perspective of deep ecology, how learning as active environmental citizenship occurs becomes a more central concern of the radical environmental movement. Thus we have to alter the culture of modernism by adopting critical pedagogical processes in SE that address structural, institutional and personal issues and culturally sensitive solutions to the environmental crisis. Where and when whole institution approaches are practised moral education commences at an early age (Coles, 1997, Farrer with Hawkes, 2000). Pupils learn at a very early age to respect one another, to cooperate with one another, to listen and discuss, all the attributes that are essential to a true working democracy (Brain, 2001). It is an education that achieves standards but without standardisation. 5.

The Deep Question

How do we get from the dominant Western educational paradigm grounded, at worst in economies of performance and at best, in shallow reformist environmental ethics and disciplinary epistemologies to a transformatory social and educational paradigm founded on deep green

Education for Sustainable Development 184 _______________________________________________________________ ecocentric ethics, global citizenship, environmental justice and a holistic, integrated epistemology? In short how do we realise ecocentric, whole institution approaches? The immediate answer to this question is that the vision of education outlined in the last section will be potentially blinding and therefore disempowering if this is presented in as a raw mission statement in most schools and to most teachers. In addition ideals or visions are elusive. As soon as we approach a vision it will change because as we engage with reality in order to transform it new possibilities emerge (Chodorkoff, 1990). Ideals are also contentious in education (Reisman, 1990). From a postmodern perspective, ideals or visions described as concrete outcomes are anathema because of their universalising utopianism. However, Fullan and Hargreaves do acknowledge the importance of generic, process-based vision: If there is one justifiable vision that is generic to our argument, it is a vision of particular ways of working together and of commitment to perpetual learning and improvement. …. process visions about how schools work together are central to continuing improvement (Fullan and Hargreaves, 1992, 122). Change is a journey. But discussions of educational change, particularly if they are narrowly, philosophical, sociological or psychological, often conflate vision, rationale and design when educational change is under discussion. There are differing environmental philosophies from which rationales for and sometimes visions of SE can be derived, such as deep ecology, social ecology, socially critical perspectives or ecofeminism that can influence this journey. Psychologically, socially critical education, social ecology and ecofeminism, may be more amenable, starting points on the journey towards SE because they are rooted in critiques of the dominant Western social paradigm that rarely invoke personal responsibility or guilt. Thus the strong ecocentric stance of deep ecology and its emphasis on agency as well structural transformation may be a value position that emerges on the journey of educational change. This developmental relationship gains strength from the apparently broad agreement among deep ecologists, social ecologists and socially critical schools of thought about transformatory, process focused, whole institution approaches to ESD (Orr, 1994, 1996, Sterling, 2001). If our theories of educational change also focus on the level of concrete decisions

Tony Shallcross and John Robinson 185 _______________________________________________________________ and actions, on how education is enacted in schools, rather than with the ultimate philosophical values on which SE is based the prospect of hospitable narratives of agreement about SE appears rosier: ‘They concur with the practice even though they operate from diverging theories’ (Naess, 1995a, 66). This developmental approach is not a quest for tyrannical consensus, but for the appreciation that perspectives that appear problematic and contested when viewed from a solely philosophical perspective, can, when viewed from the perspective of agency and praxis be seen more as inclusive, constructive, contributions to a theory of change. Seeing one environmental philosophy as essentialist has the potential to fragment the contribution of the radical environmental movement to formal education’s contribution to the realisation of sustainable lifestyles by marginalising other radical viewpoints with which paradoxically they share many features and prognoses. The same argument can also be applied to conceptions of ESD/EE/SE. The involvement of schools in reciprocal links with their local community represents one of the most effective ways that school children can have influence as present, global citizens. For most of us, children especially, our immediate locality is our most significant action field (Vognsen, 1995) We may also be emotionally hot wired for local action: ‘The human brain evidently evolved to commit itself emotionally only to a small piece of geography, a limited band of kinsmen and two or three generations into the future’ (Wilson, 2002, 40). By acting locally we are not only thinking as but also acting as global citizens. There are those who consider that EE without community application beyond the school gates is inauthentic (Uzzell et al., 1994, Elliot, 1999, Posch, 1999). But such spatial prescriptions partly miss the point. Community involvement should not be regarded as the soul of ESD, but as one of many possible co-ordinates on a quest in which journey is more important than the destination. Thus a school with a highly developed, internally focused, participatory culture could be considered to have a more developed ESD than a school with high levels of community linkage achieved through much lower levels of democracy, collaboration and participation (Hart, 1997). If the journey towards SE is to be societally significant, we need a theory of action that is inclusive of different formulations of ESD/EE/SE. A theory of action that recognises that although a cognitively focused education about sustainability may not be sufficient to promote environmentally just sustainable lifestyles it is making a necessary contribution to progress towards

Education for Sustainable Development 186 _______________________________________________________________ sustainable futures. All schools and all teachers are making some contribution towards SE, the problem is that they do not possess the perceptual filters to ‘see’ this work as SE. An inclusive theory of action for radical approaches to education could start by considering the processes that lead to concrete decisions and actions in schools. Not only does this promote authenticity by engaging with the daily realities that pupils, teachers, support staff, carers and pupils experience. As we have already seen, reaching agreement about what the appropriate educational processes are and what constitutes just environmental actions is easier than reaching agreement about what constitutes a sound environmental philosophy. To propose a theory of action that derives educational practice from deep green philosophies such as deep ecology would represent a major transformation in procedures and perceptions for most teachers. To many teachers such a transformation would appear difficult, (McCluney, 1994), or impossible, and therefore be psychologically disempowering (Roszak, 1995) for a coherent theory of action: [c]all someone's entire way of life into question, and what you are apt to produce is defensive rigidity. It is elementary psychology that those who wish to change the world for the better should not begin by vilifying the public they seek to persuade, or by confronting it with a task that appears impossible, (Roszak, 1995, 16). We need to stop asking whether we will achieve environmental justice and global citizenship or not and what these terms mean and get down to work (Orr, 1996). Environmental action should initially address win-win situations for example by appealing to short-term economic self-interest for as long as mental-egoic consciousness is prevalent, reformative rather than transformative environmentalism will be dominant (Zimmerman, 1994). Another reason for stressing economic self-interest as a starting point for a theory of action is because ESD is currently at a stage of genesis. We can only have the barest idea of what educations beyond anthropocentrism will look like. Therefore we should privilege the processes that will help to promote the change from anthropocentric to ecocentric values by transforming communicative rationality, while acknowledging that the processes that link culture and values weave a complex web. “It is a long-term process of

Tony Shallcross and John Robinson 187 _______________________________________________________________ deploying resources not to directly achieve an end, but to establish a situation in which those ends are more likely to be achieved” (Begg, 2000, 257). So the first practical step towards non-dualistic consciousness is the development and implementation of a modernist, liberal, democratic humanism (Wilber, 1983) in which the majority will become responsible people. Such an approach will demonstrate that process focused SE is capable of meeting modernist criteria of what constitutes effective educational performance while simultaneously posing difficult questions about the nature and purpose of an education that will contribute to the transformation of lifestyles needed to identify and realise sustainability. A fusion of theorising that provides the rigorous philosophical foundation for ecocentricity with the actions that apply ecocentric ideas in a fashion sensitive to and constructed in local contexts has to be SE’s aim. This approach could attract widespread support from teachers if it is approached through the discussion of decisions and the implementation of actions. Initially a theory of action could appeal to anthropocentrism, with which most teachers currently identify, while looking for the opportunity to grasp serendipitous opportunities to critique anthropocentricity to reveal and develop ecocentric consciousness. The theory of action proposed here is founded on the belief that ecocentric consciousness will develop on this journey as an emergent property of whole institution approaches. This psychologising of ecophilosophy in an inclusive theory of action for SE represents a concrete contribution that education can make to the promotion environmental justice and global citizenship. 6.

Conclusion

We do not require education that terminates at being about, in or for global citizenship and environmental justice but education as active global citizenship and environmental justice. This is an education that is concerned with process, with journey with how we educate rather than an education that is concerned with outcomes, with destinations with what education is about. This is not a rejection of knowledge and cognition but a recognition that that while knowledge and understanding are necessary they are not sufficient to promote global citizenship or environmental justice on a societal basis. A process focused education as active global citizenship or environmental justice cannot occur in a cognitive vacuum, processes are only elaborated and learned in the

Education for Sustainable Development 188 _______________________________________________________________ context of content. The importance question is who makes the decisions about this content. When we have education as global citizenship and environmental justice decisions about content will be made at a local level and will address real issues that give education a high degree of authenticity because citizenship education is not just an education in political and civic literacy but an education and as active citizenship. Cognitively this will lead to an education in understanding as well as knowledge. Such an approach is bets realised in Western liberal democracies through whole school approaches that see education as a hospitable narrative that synergises education in the fullness of human experience. But in promoting such approaches we need to root education in ecologies of practice (Stronach et al., 2001) that lead to transformation in our ethical stances to practices rooted in ecocentricity. But such a vision is potentially blinding for those for whom anthropocentrism is second nature. Consequently we need an inclusive theory of action that will sees us taking our first steps on the journey that is change by focusing on decisions and concrete actions rather than ultimate values and by using hospitable rather than inhospitable narratives (Derrida, 2001) on our pilgrim’s progress.

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About the Authors

Asghar Ali Asghar Ali has an M. Phil in Environmental Science from the University of East Anglia, Norwich, United Kingdom. His recent publications include articles on environmental justice, critical development theories and interdisciplinary methodologies. His research interests include nonWestern epistemologies, science and technology studies, futures studies and religion and environment. At present he is writing a book chapter on critical Islamic epistemology. He lives in Toronto, Canada.

David Birch David Birch is Professor of Communication and the Director of the Corporate Citizenship Research Unit, Deakin University, Melbourne, which he established in late 1997. He is on the Editorial Boards of several International Journals, including The Journal of Corporate Citizenship, The Journal of Business Governance and Ethics, and Asian Business and Management, and was general editor of the international journal Social Semiotics from 1993-2002. He has published many articles and books, with his latest book co-written with Tony Schirato and Sanjay Srivastava published in 2002 by Allen & Unwin as Asia: Cultural Politics in the Global Age. He has worked with some leading companies in Australia, including BP, Rio Tinto, TXU Australia, The City of Melbourne, World Vision, BHP, BHP Billiton, Ernst & Young, Bristol Myers Squibb, ANZ, Telstra, Transfield Services, Community Philanthropy Australia, The Business Council of Australia and the Australian Institute of Company Directors; and in research mentorships with graduate employees in Bosch, the National Australia Bank and Ford Australia. He is also a member of the Australian Institute of Company Directors, Adjunct Professor in corporate citizenship at Southern Cross University, and a member of a number of Boards of leading civil society organisations.

John Callewaert John Callewaert is the Director of the Institute for Community and Environment and an Assistant Professor in the Department of Social Sciences and Education at Colby-Sawyer College. Callewaert completed

his Ph.D. in the Resource Policy and Behavior program of the School of Natural Resources and Environment at the University of Michigan. Areas of interest include environmental ethics, environmental policy, environmental sociology, community-based research and service learning. [email protected]

Gavin Fridell Gavin Fridell is a Ph.D. Candidate in Political Science at York University in Toronto, Canada. He is a member of the Rural and Community Development Group (RCDG) at the Center for Research on Latin America and the Caribbean (CERLAC) at York and a participant of the York University Fair Trade Campaign. Gavin Fridell is a Ph.D. Candidate in Political Science at York University in Toronto, Canada. He is a member of the Rural and Community Development Group (RCDG) at the Center for Research on Latin America and the Caribbean (CERLAC) at York and a participant of the York University Fair Trade Campaign.

Kristen Hessler Kristen Hessler, (B. A. in Philosophy from Gettysburg College, M. A., and Ph.D. in Philosophy from University of Arizona), is the bioethics outreach coordinator at Iowa State University. Her interests include human rights law, basic moral questions about the nature and justification of rights, and bioethics. She has published articles on Arizona's cancer clinical trials law, the human right to health care, and ecofeminism. [email protected]

John Robinson John Robinson is Head of the Research Degree Programme in the Institute of Education, Manchester Metropolitan University. He holds masters degrees from the universities of Glasgow (MPhil) and Manchester (MA(Econ) and MEd) and he has just completed his PhD at MMU. Prior to joining what is now MMU in 1987 he taught in secondary schools in Manchester and Glasgow and in a sixth form college in Salford. As Head of the Research Degree Programme he is involved in teaching research methodology classes up to doctoral level, having earlier lead the Secondary ITT Programme in the (former) Crewe School of Education (MMU). He has been involved in several local, national and international research and evaluation projects and teachers education development activities. His recent research, evaluation and development work includes

an evaluation of GridClub for Becta, research into teachers’ perceptions of their CPD experiences for the DfES, the development of a training pack on Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) (the SEEPs Project) funded by the EU and a project linking MMU with Rhodes University, RSA to develop a training pack for ESD in South Africa funded by the British Council. [email protected]

Tony Shallcross Tony Shallcross is Leader of the International programme in the Institute of Education, Manchester Metropolitan University (MMU). His Masters of Education degree is from Manchester University and his PhD is from MMU. Tony has taught in secondary schools in England and Singapore and prior to joining MMU he worked at Edinburgh University. Tony is Director of the European Union funded ‘Sustainability Education in European Primary Schools (SEEPs) Project’ and the British Council ESD South Africa Link Project with Rhodes University and UNISA. [email protected]

Robert Skalnik J. Robert Skalnik Ed.D. is an assistant professor at National University, School of Business and Technology, San Diego, California. His research interests are in marketing and business ethics.

Paul Street Paul Street teaches in the School of Law at the University of Nottingham having also taught in the law departments of the University of Wales, Aberystwyth and The University of Warwick. He writes and researches on a range of issues concerning the relationships between international trade and the environment focusing in particular on the implications of developments in these areas for developing countries.

David Smith David E. Smith D.B.A. is a visiting professor at the Copenhagen Business School, Center of Market Economics, Denmark, and an associate professor at National University, School of Business and Technology, San Diego, California. His research interests are in international technology

transfer, ethical concerns associated with new technologies, and international marketing. [email protected]

Tangram Architekten TANGRAM Architekten is carrying out research into the possibilities and consequences of densification, both in theory and in practice. In addition, the office is working at various locations on high-density to very highdensity schemes. Our departure-point is not the maximization of density, but rather the creation of attractive living, working and social environments with high, but acceptable building densities. Acceptable high densities are environments in which MÀ is an explicit design tool. In their recently published book MÀ-SSA (MÀ-SS) that deals with the specific design aspects of building in high densities, it is stated that in high density surroundings it's not the buildings (mass) that need designing but the space that is left over. In Japanese MÀ means meaningful empty space. MÀ-SSA is a meaningful built environment in which mass and MÀ harmoniously co-exist. ir Bart Mispelblom Beyer (1958) and ir Charlotte ten Dijke (1958) are the architect-directors of TANGRAM Architects since 1990. They graduated cum laude at the Technical University of Delft in 1985. TANGRAM Architects was created as a team following participation in European I, a biennial design competition for young architects in which the team won first prize. It is now a firm with 20 employees with commissions for offices, non-commercial buildings and apartment buildings combined with facilities. Indira van 't Klooster (1971) is architectural historian (University of Amsterdam, 1996) employed with TANGRAM Architects as researcher. She's also a journalist for Holland's main architecture magazine, De Architect.

Global Citizenship and Environmental Justice (At the Interface Probing the Boundaries 17) (At the Interface Probing the Boundaries)

Redefining Europe (At the Interface Probing the Boundaries 25) (At the Interface Probing the Boundaries)

Bordering Biomedicine (At the Interface Probing the Boundaries 29) (At the Interface Probing the Boundaries)

Promoting and Producing Evil (At the Interface Probing the Boundaries)

Illness in Context. (At the Interface Probing the Boundaries)

Future as Fairness: Ecological Justice and Global Citizenship (At the Interface Probing the Boundaries 10)

Territories of Evil. (At the Interface Probing the Boundaries)

Contemporary Issues in Education (At the Interface Probing the Boundaries)

Violence: 'Mercurial Gestalt'. (At the Interface Probing the Boundaries)

Forgiveness in Perspective. (At the Interface Probing the Boundaries)

Evil, Law and the State: Perspectives on State Power and Violence (At the Interface Probing the Boundaries 24) (At the Interface Probing the Boundaries)

At the Interface: Continuity and Transformation in Culture and Politics (At the Interface: Probing the Boundaries, 20)

Monsters and the Monstrous: Myths and Metaphors of Enduring Evil (At the Interface Probing the Boundaries)

Monsters and the Monstrous: Myths and Metaphors of Enduring Evil (At the Interface Probing the Boundaries)

War, Virtual War and Society: The Challenge to Communities (At the Interface Probing the Boundaries)

The Tapestry of Health, Illness and Disease. (At the Interface Probing the Boundaries)

Moral Entrepreneurs and the Campaign to Ban Landmines. (At the Interface Probing the Boundaries)

The New Order of War (At the Interface Probing the Boundaries)

Virtual Learning and Higher Education (At the Interface Probing the Boundaries 8)

Virtuality and Education: A Reader (At the Interface Probing the Boundaries 34)

Fear Itself: Reasoning the Unreasonable (At the Interface Probing the Boundaries)

Social Studies of Health, Illness and Disease (At the Interface Probing the Boundaries)

Learning and teaching in a metropolis: Interdisciplinary tales from London (At the Interface Probing the Boundaries)

Understanding Problems of Social Pathology (At the Interface Probing the Boundaries 33)

Frontiers of Diversity: Explorations in Contemporary Pluralism (At the Interface Probing the Boundaries 18) (v. 18)

Understanding Evil: An Interdisciplinary Approach (At the Interface Probing the Boundaries 2)

Minding Evil: Explorations of Human Iniquity (At the Interface Probing the Boundaries, 23)

Understanding Problems of Social Pathology (At the Interface Probing the Boundaries 33)

Beyond Boundaries of Biomedicine: Pragmatic Perspectives on Health and Disease (At the Interface Probing the Boundaries 4)

Global Citizenship and Environmental Justice (At the Interface Probing the Boundaries 17) (At the Interface Probing the Boundaries)

Redefining Europe (At the Interface Probing the Boundaries 25) (At the Interface Probing the Boundaries)

Bordering Biomedicine (At the Interface Probing the Boundaries 29) (At the Interface Probing the Boundaries)

Promoting and Producing Evil (At the Interface Probing the Boundaries)

Illness in Context. (At the Interface Probing the Boundaries)

Future as Fairness: Ecological Justice and Global Citizenship (At the Interface Probing the Boundaries 10)

Territories of Evil. (At the Interface Probing the Boundaries)

Contemporary Issues in Education (At the Interface Probing the Boundaries)

Violence: 'Mercurial Gestalt'. (At the Interface Probing the Boundaries)

Forgiveness in Perspective. (At the Interface Probing the Boundaries)

Evil, Law and the State: Perspectives on State Power and Violence (At the Interface Probing the Boundaries 24) (At the Interface Probing the Boundaries)

At the Interface: Continuity and Transformation in Culture and Politics (At the Interface: Probing the Boundaries, 20)

Monsters and the Monstrous: Myths and Metaphors of Enduring Evil (At the Interface Probing the Boundaries)

Monsters and the Monstrous: Myths and Metaphors of Enduring Evil (At the Interface Probing the Boundaries)

War, Virtual War and Society: The Challenge to Communities (At the Interface Probing the Boundaries)

The Tapestry of Health, Illness and Disease. (At the Interface Probing the Boundaries)

Moral Entrepreneurs and the Campaign to Ban Landmines. (At the Interface Probing the Boundaries)

The New Order of War (At the Interface Probing the Boundaries)

Virtual Learning and Higher Education (At the Interface Probing the Boundaries 8)

Virtuality and Education: A Reader (At the Interface Probing the Boundaries 34)

Fear Itself: Reasoning the Unreasonable (At the Interface Probing the Boundaries)

Social Studies of Health, Illness and Disease (At the Interface Probing the Boundaries)

Learning and teaching in a metropolis: Interdisciplinary tales from London (At the Interface Probing the Boundaries)

Understanding Problems of Social Pathology (At the Interface Probing the Boundaries 33)

Frontiers of Diversity: Explorations in Contemporary Pluralism (At the Interface Probing the Boundaries 18) (v. 18)

Understanding Evil: An Interdisciplinary Approach (At the Interface Probing the Boundaries 2)

Minding Evil: Explorations of Human Iniquity (At the Interface Probing the Boundaries, 23)

Understanding Problems of Social Pathology (At the Interface Probing the Boundaries 33)

Beyond Boundaries of Biomedicine: Pragmatic Perspectives on Health and Disease (At the Interface Probing the Boundaries 4)

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