Social and Environmental Justice

Abstract

In the world today, many enjoy unprecedented material wealth. Economic reforms and trade liberalization have opened borders to the freer flow of capital and goods, allowing economies to diversify and international commerce to flourish. Yet this wealth creation comes at high human and environmental costs largely borne by the poor and the marginalized. The human costs are evident in the persistence of poverty and the growing inequalities between North and South, as well in the unequal distribution of wealth and opportunities within most countries. Fully a third of the world's population survives on less than two US dollars a day. A fifth of the population – 1.2 billion people – live in extreme poverty on half that amount. Low income is just one result of the denial of basic rights including access to productive assets, social services and cultural opportunities. Meanwhile, the world's economic growth and the accompanying communications revolution foster production and consumption patterns in wealthy countries that are ecologically unsustainable. Unless corrected, all of humanity will ultimately shoulder the costs of environmental degradation. It is the poor, however, who currently pay a disproportionate share of these costs, through the contamination and loss of the ecosystems and natural resources upon which their livelihoods depend. But progress is possible. The international community has affirmed that all peoples have human and environmental rights. These are rights that should guide the distribution of the material benefits and limit the environmental costs of economic growth.