Knox & Tronolone: Environmental Justice as Environmental Human Rights

John H. Knox (Wake Forest Univ. - Law) & Nicole Tronolone have posted Environmental Justice as Environmental Human Rights. Here's the abstract:

The movement for environmental justice in the United States, which has fought against environmental racism for forty years, is also a quest to bring the United States into compliance with international human rights law concerning the environment. This article seeks to clarify the relationship between the two, by assessing the U.S. environmental record in light of its obligations under international human rights law.

After setting out the most detailed restatement of environmental human rights law yet published in the scholarly literature, it conducts the first systematic evaluation of U.S. compliance with those norms. The article finds that while the United States does comply in some important ways, its record has some grave shortcomings and one gigantic gap: the failure to effectively address the disproportionate environmental burdens placed on African Americans, Native Americans, and other minorities. Human rights bodies have already characterized that failure as violating the United States' obligation to prevent racial discrimination.

The article concludes by observing how stronger bridges between the U.S. environmental justice movement and the international environmental human rights regime would benefit both sides. As a recent example, it highlights the U.S. decision in July 2022 to reverse its long-standing opposition to UN recognition of the human right to a healthy environment, which resulted at least in part from the increasing recognition by U.S. politicians that the language of environmental justice at home is the language of environmental human rights internationally.