Environmental Rights

Environmental Rights

Author: Steve Vanderheiden

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2017-07-05

Total Pages: 553

ISBN-13: 1351568051

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The essays selected for this volume present critical viewpoints from the debate about the need to establish rights on behalf of greater environmental protection. Three main areas for developing environmental rights are surveyed, including: extensionist theories that link existing rights (for example to subsistence or territory) to threats of harm from exacerbated resource scarcity, pollution or rapid environmental change; proposals for rights to specified environmental goods or services, such as rights to a safe environment and the capacity to assimilate greenhouse gas emissions; and rights that protect the interests of parties not currently recognized as having rights, including nonhuman subjects, natural objects and future generations. This volume captures the potential for and primary challenges to the development of rights as instruments for safeguarding the planet's life-support capacities and features proposals and analyses which argue the need to create an avenue of recourse against ecological degradation, whether on behalf of human or nonhuman right holders.


What's Wrong with Climate Politics and How to Fix It

What's Wrong with Climate Politics and How to Fix It

Author: Paul G. Harris

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2013-07-11

Total Pages: 306

ISBN-13: 0745670431

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Governments have failed to stem global emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases causing climate change. Indeed, climate-changing pollution is increasing globally, and will do so for decades to come without far more aggressive action. What explains this failure to effectively tackle one of the world's most serious problems? And what can we do about it? To answer these questions, Paul G. Harris looks at climate politics as a doctor might look at a very sick patient. He performs urgent diagnoses and prescribes vital treatments to revive our ailing planet before it's too late. The book begins by diagnosing what’s most wrong with climate politics, including the anachronistic international system, which encourages nations to fight for their narrowly perceived interests and makes major cuts in greenhouse pollution extraordinarily difficult; the deadlock between the United States and China, which together produce over one-third of global greenhouse gas pollution but do little more than demand that the other act first; and affluent lifestyles and overconsumption, which are spreading rapidly from industrialized nations to the developing world. The book then prescribes several "remedies" for the failed politics of climate change, including a new kind of climate diplomacy with people at its center, national policies that put the common but differentiated responsibilities of individuals alongside those of nations, and a campaign for simultaneously enhancing human wellbeing and environmental sustainability. While these treatments are aspirational, they are not intended to be utopian. As Harris shows, they are genuine, workable solutions to what ails the politics of climate change today.


Research Handbook on the Politics of Human Rights Law

Research Handbook on the Politics of Human Rights Law

Author: Bård A. Andreassen

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

Published: 2023-01-20

Total Pages: 511

ISBN-13: 1789908833

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International human rights law is undoubtedly intertwined with politics, and so this Research Handbook explores and provokes reflection on how politics impacts human rights legislation and, conversely, how human rights law shapes politics and the functioning of the state. Bringing together leading international scholars in human rights law and politics, the Research Handbook provides theoretical reflections and empirical analyses across the areas of governance and policies and examines the implementation mechanisms of human rights law in national and international jurisdictions.


Annual Report

Annual Report

Author: United States. Congressional-Executive Commission on China

Publisher:

Published: 2009

Total Pages: 476

ISBN-13:

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The Environmental Rights Revolution

The Environmental Rights Revolution

Author: David R. Boyd

Publisher: UBC Press

Published: 2011-11-29

Total Pages: 470

ISBN-13: 0774821639

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The right to a healthy environment has been the subject of extensive philosophical debates that revolve around the question: Should rights to clean air, water, and soil be entrenched in law? David Boyd answers this by moving beyond theoretical debates to measure the practical effects of enshrining the right in constitutions. His pioneering analysis of 193 constitutions and the laws and court decisions of more than 100 nations in Europe, Latin America, Asia, and Africa reveals a positive correlation between constitutional protection and stronger environmental laws, smaller ecological footprints, superior environmental performance, and improved quality of life.


Urban Areas and Global Climate Change

Urban Areas and Global Climate Change

Author: William Holt

Publisher: Emerald Group Publishing

Published: 2012-10-12

Total Pages: 375

ISBN-13: 178190037X

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Examining urban environmental issues at the macro, municipal level down to the micro community and individual level, this volume features cities and metropolitan regions across the global north and south with case studies from the United States, Canada, Eastern and Western Europe to India, Central America, South America and Africa.


Narratives of Hunger in International Law

Narratives of Hunger in International Law

Author: Anne Saab

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2019-04-04

Total Pages: 225

ISBN-13: 110857999X

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This book explores the role that the language of international law plays in constructing understandings - or narratives - of hunger in the context of climate change. The story is told through a specific case study of genetically engineered seeds purportedly made to be 'climate-ready'. Two narratives of hunger run through the storyline: the prevailing neoliberal narrative that focuses on increasing food production and relying on technological innovations and private sector engagement, and the oppositional and aspirational food sovereignty narrative that focuses on improving access to and distribution of food and rejects technological innovations and private sector engagement as the best solutions. This book argues that the way in which voices in the neoliberal narrative use international law reinforces fundamental assumptions about hunger and climate change, and the way in which voices in the food sovereignty narrative use international law fails to question and challenge these assumptions.


Water Rights and Social Justice in the Mekong Region

Water Rights and Social Justice in the Mekong Region

Author: Kate Lazarus

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2012-06-25

Total Pages: 290

ISBN-13: 1136538860

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The Mekong Region has come to represent many of the important water governance challenges faced more broadly by the mainland Southeast Asian region. This book focuses on the complex nature of water rights and social justice in the Mekong region. The chapters delve into the diverse social, political and cultural dynamics that shape the various realities and scales of water governance in the region, in an effort to bring to the forefront some of the local nuances required in the formulation of a larger vision of justice in water governance. It is hoped that this contextualized analysis will deepen our understanding of the potential of, and constraints, on water rights in the region, particularly in relation to the need to realize social justice. The authors show how vitally important it is that water governance is democratized to allow a more equitable sharing of water resources and counteract the pressures of economic growth that may pose risks to social welfare and environmental sustainability.