Description: Despite the global endorsement of the Sustainable Development Goals, environmental justice struggles are growing all over the world. These struggles are not isolated injustices, but symptoms of interlocking forms of oppression that privilege the few while inflicting misery on the many and threatening ecological collapse. This handbook offers critical perspectives on the multi-dimensional, intersectional nature of environmental injustice and the cross-cutting forms of oppression that unite and divide these struggles, including gender, race, poverty, and indigeneity. The work sheds new light on the often-neglected social dimension of sustainability and its relationship to human rights and environmental justice. Using a variety of legal frameworks and case studies from around the world, this volume illustrates the importance of overcoming the fragmentation of these legal frameworks and social movements in order to develop holistic solutions that promote justice and protect the planet's ecosystems at a time of intensifying economic and ecological crisis.
Brief description: Sumudu Atapattu is Director of Research Centers and International Programs at University of Wisconsin Law School and Executive Director of the Human Rights Program. She is affiliated faculty with Raoul Wallenberg Institute for Human Rights, Sweden and lead counsel for human rights at Center for International Sustainable Development Law, Canada.
Review Quotes: 'Given the challenge we face of responding effectively to the climate crisis, this book helps us to link legal frameworks and the struggles of social movements. It encourages us to deepen the relationship between climate justice, sustainable development and human rights in order to make the radical, systemic change that will ensure a sustainable future for all.' Mary Robinson, Former President of Ireland and former UN High, Commissioner for Human Rights, Founder, Mary Robinson Foundation-Climate Justice, and UN Secretary General's Special Envoy for Climate Change