Environmental Injustice, Human Rights and Democracy in Africa

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Date

2014-06

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Addis Ababa University

Abstract

Millions of Africans need to be saved not only from their old time allies, famine and poverty, but also from environmental injustices that are jeopardizing their life and well being. In this thesis I show that certain forms of environmental injustice pose human rights concerns and their remedy also requires the adoption and implementation of human rights approach in the continent. One important point I claim is thatadopting a human rights approach demands a broader theory of environmental justice that allows for the incorporation of other elements of justice (capabilities, participation, and recognition) than the one that depends on the question of distribution alone. This is crucial for two general reasons. First; identifying the cause, the result and remedy of different environmental injustices in the continent requires looking at each of the elements and the relation they have between one another and human rights. Second, it is because each of the different elements of ‘justice’ that I identified are in one way or another also elements of human rights that are internationally accepted. The thesis goes on to examine the human rights impacts of four different instances of environmental injustices on the enjoyment and promotion of human rights. The human rights impacts of global climate change, land grabbing for investments purposes, toxic waste importation, and resource exploitation are studied in this work. Based on the secondary data’s available on each of these four different instances I show that certain dimensions of environmental injustice pose human rights concerns. Because of Land grabbing, the overexploitation of natural resources, toxic waste imports from industrialized countries, and climate change the basic human rights of the people are being endangered. The right to life, the right to health, the right to food, and the right to live in a clean and healthy environment are just some of the human rights that are being infringed because of the above mentioned injustices. Alleviating or reducing these problems demands adopting a human rights approach. Moreover, the thesis calls for the importance of implementing ideals of deliberative democracy in decision making processes. I argue that in order to protect their rights members of the community should be given the chance of participation in democratic deliberation regarding issues that affect the enjoyment of their basic human rights. Keywords: Deliberative Democracy, Environment, Environmental justice, Environmental Injustice, Environmental Problems, Human Rights

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Keywords

Deliberative Democracy, Environmental justice, Human Rights, Environmental Problems

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