Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
cultural contexts in which each form of justice is made sense of. This
has become all the more necessary as the use of the environmental justice
frame has moved around the globe, applied in diverse contexts and to
different forms of environmental concern. In terms fi rst of distributive
justice, a pluralistic view of justice fi nds necessary diversity in the criteria
of distribution to be applied because “there are many different social
goods (and evils) whose distribution is a matter of justice, with each
kind of good having its own particular criterion of distribution” (Miller
1995, 2). More fundamentally, Walzer (1983) contends that naming and
giving meaning to any particular good or bad (including environmental
ones) is a social process, particular and produced rather than universal.
Schroeder et al. (2008, 550) similarly argue, specifi cally in the context
of environmental justice cases in the developing world, that the concepts
of benefi ts and burdens “are always relative, both in absolute terms and
with respect to any particular group of potential resource users.”
Much the same applies to the cultural basis of understandings of
procedural justice and what this constitutes. How voice is “given” and
to whom (defi ned culturally and/or spatially), how representation legiti-
mately achieved, how meaningful involvement is enabled, and the degree
to which differentials in power can in any way be equalized within
decision-making forums, are each culturally shaped and situated compo-
nents of determining what constitutes justice in procedure.
What constitutes justice in procedure becomes a particularly important
issue when this question is posed against the background of indigenous
land-right claims. Indigenous peoples have highlighted that rights to land,
traditional institutions, cultural practices, and intellectual property rights
are inseparable and interrelated. Not only are indigenous peoples strug-
gling to get their legal rights over land and resources recognized, they
also want to have the freedom to make their own decisions about how
to use and manage natural and cultural resources. However, as Borrows
(2002) argues, the current sociolegal and political platform through
which indigenous peoples can claim restitution of land forces indigenous
peoples to engage with a discourse that does not necessarily refl ect the
social context experienced by indigenous peoples. The criteria for indig-
enous status in native title claims enforce an engagement with primordial-
ist and essentialist concepts of culture. Indigeneity is fi xed in time and
place and is not socioeconomically and historically contextualized. This
strategy can lead to the exclusion of indigenous peoples who have lost
the connections with their ancestral land. For example, Canadian and
American courts have rendered some indigenous land-right claims invalid
