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