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Full-Text Articles in Law
Abolition And Environmental Justice, Allegra M. Mcleod
Abolition And Environmental Justice, Allegra M. Mcleod
Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works
During the coronavirus pandemic, movements for penal abolition and racial justice achieved dramatic growth and increased visibility. While much public discussion of abolition has centered on the call to divest from criminal law enforcement, contemporary abolitionists also understand public safety in terms of building new life-sustaining institutions and collective structures that improve human well-being, linking penal divestment to environmental justice. In urging a reimagination of public safety, abolitionists envision much more than decriminalization or a reallocation of police functions to social service agencies or other alternatives to imprisonment and policing. Instead, for abolitionists, meaningful public safety requires, among other things, …
Highways And Bi-Ways For Environmental Justice, Richard J. Lazarus
Highways And Bi-Ways For Environmental Justice, Richard J. Lazarus
Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works
The purpose of this essay is to discuss the past, present, and future of the environmental justice movement as illustrated by the highway between Selma and Montgomery in Alabama and the highway system surrounding the City of Atlanta in neighboring Georgia. The essay is divided into three parts. The first part describes environmental justice, seeking both to place it in a broader historical perspective and to discuss how it relates to civil rights law and environmental law. The second part undertakes a closer examination of the challenges presented by efforts to fashion positive law to address environmental justice norms. This …
“Environmental Racism! That’S What It Is.”, Richard J. Lazarus
“Environmental Racism! That’S What It Is.”, Richard J. Lazarus
Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works
In this essay, Professor Lazarus discusses former NAACP director the Rev. Dr. Benjamin Chavis's characterization of U.S. environmental policy as "environmental racism." He first justifies this provocative topic choice and then suggests that Chavis's allegation has transformed environmental law. Professor Lazarus next discusses the details of this transformation, arguing that Rev. Chavis has essentially reshaped the way environmental law and justice are conceived. He offers examples of various environmental programs and social and political effects traceable to Chavis's environmental racism comment. Finally, the conclusion provides some of the author's ruminations about the future of environmental law and policy.
Pursuing "Environmental Justice": The Distributional Effects Of Environmental Protection, Richard J. Lazarus
Pursuing "Environmental Justice": The Distributional Effects Of Environmental Protection, Richard J. Lazarus
Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works
The purpose of this Article is to explore the distributional side of environmental protection and, more particularly, to explain the significance of including environmental justice concerns into the fashioning of environmental protection policy. Unlike earlier legal commentary, hazardous waste facility siting is not this Article's dominant focus. It offers a broader, more systemic, examination of environmental protection laws and policies. The Article is divided into three parts. First, it describes the nature of the problem. This includes a discussion of the varied distributional implications of environmental protection laws, as well as the ways in which racial minorities could receive too …