| Comments | While sympathetic to the skepticism with which many environmental justice activists treat environmental laws and lawyers, this article explores some of the conditions in which its author feels environmental laws can contribute to environmental justice goals. Part I considers the strategies that EJ advocates have championed. Part II explores the relationship between the EJ and environmental movement, focusing on the ways that environmental laws have sometimes caused, rather than alleviated, environmental problems in low-income communities and communities of color. Part III begins to bridge environmental laws and the pursuit of procedural justice (referred to as political justice) by looking at the ways that environmental laws have and can influence debates about fair treatment. In this section, the author argues that environmental laws illuminate the process through which environmental decisions are made, and can therefore reveal instances of illegitimate decision-making. In this way, environmental laws may be more germane to environmental justice efforts. |
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