Environmental Injustice Human Rights And Democracy In Africa

Millions of Africans need to be saved not only from their old time allies, famine and poverty, butrnalso from environmental injustices that are jeopardizing their life and well being. In this thesis Irnshow that certain forms of environmental injustice pose human rights concerns and their remedyrnalso requires the adoption and implementation of human rights approach in the continent. Onernimportant point I claim is thatadopting a human rights approach demands a broader theory ofrnenvironmental justice that allows for the incorporation of other elements of justice (capabilities,rnparticipation, and recognition) than the one that depends on the question of distribution alone.rnThis is crucial for two general reasons. First; identifying the cause, the result and remedy ofrndifferent environmental injustices in the continent requires looking at each of the elements andrnthe relation they have between one another and human rights. Second, it is because each of therndifferent elements of ‘justice’ that I identified are in one way or another also elements of humanrnrights that are internationally accepted. The thesis goes on to examine the human rights impactsrnof four different instances of environmental injustices on the enjoyment and promotion of humanrnrights. The human rights impacts of global climate change, land grabbing for investmentsrnpurposes, toxic waste importation, and resource exploitation are studied in this work. Based onrnthe secondary data’s available on each of these four different instances I show that certainrndimensions of environmental injustice pose human rights concerns. Because of Land grabbing,rnthe overexploitation of natural resources, toxic waste imports from industrialized countries, andrnclimate change the basic human rights of the people are being endangered. The right to life, thernright to health, the right to food, and the right to live in a clean and healthy environment are justrnsome of the human rights that are being infringed because of the above mentioned injustices.rnAlleviating or reducing these problems demands adopting a human rights approach. Moreover,rnthe thesis calls for the importance of implementing ideals of deliberative democracy in decisionrnmaking processes. I argue that in order to protect their rights members of the community shouldrnbe given the chance of participation in democratic deliberation regarding issues that affect thernenjoyment of their basic human rights.rnKeywords: Deliberative Democracy, Environment, Environmental justice, Environmental Injustice, Environmental Problems, Human Rights

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