Recent Developments in Climate Justice

December 2017
Citation:
47
ELR 11005
Issue
12
Author
Rachel Jean-Baptiste, Randall S. Abate, Maria Antonia Tigre, Dr. Patricia Ferreira, and Dr. Wil Burns

Climate justice can be defined generally as addressing the disproportionate burden of climate change impacts on poor and marginalized communities. It seeks to promote more equitable allocation of these burdens at the local, national, and global levels through proactive regulatory initiatives and reactive judicial remedies that draw on international human rights and domestic environmental justice theories. Yet, efforts to define climate justice as a field of inquiry remain elusive and underinclusive. A recent book, Climate Justice: Case Studies in Global and Regional Governance Challenges (ELI Press 2016), seeks to fill that void by providing an overview of the landscape of climate justice from a variety of legal and geographic perspectives. On March 10, 2017, ELI convened the book’s editor and three contributing authors to discuss current developments. In this Dialogue, we present a transcript of the seminar, which has been edited for style, clarity, and space considerations.

Rachel Jean-Baptiste is a Senior Attorney at the Environmental Law Institute. Randall S. Abate is the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and Professor of Law at Florida A&M College of Law. Maria Antonia Tigre is a Senior Attorney in the Environment Program at the Cyrus R. Vance Center for International Justice. Dr. Patricia Ferreira is a Law Foundation of Ontario Scholar, Windsor Law, and a Fellow at the Center for International Governance Innovation, Canada. Dr. Wil Burns is founding Co-Director of the Forum for Climate Engineering Assessment at the School of International Service, American University.

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