Justice-based approaches to environmental harm - Environmental Harm: An Eco-justice Perspective - page 12

of harm and wrongdoing is vital to proving injustice and mobilising
social movements for change.
It has been observed that - in relation to humans - the notion
of harm necessitates an understanding of the human condition and
the prerequisites for human well-being (Pantazis and Pemberton,
2009). One way to assess harm according to these criteria is through
consideration of the concept of 'need' in relation to human life. For
green criminology and the eco-justice perspective, the obvious challenge
is how best to conceptualise 'need' in regards to the nonhuman and,
indeed, to collectivities and systems, rather than solely to individuals. At
least part of the answer to this is provided in literature that examines
closely the notion of 'justice'.
Justice in political practice is articulated and understood as a balance
of numerous interlinked elements. Schlosberg (2007) identifies the
key categories or dimensions of justice as including distribution,
recognition, participation and capability.
• The notion of justice as fairness is associated with questions of
distribution . Justice, according to this conception, defines how we
distribute various rights, goods and liberties and how we define
and regulate social and economic equality and inequality. What
matters are the rules of distributive justice and how these are
constructed. The rules may be procedure-based, such as providing
equal opportunities for everyone to attain valued goods; or they may
be oriented toward consequentialist and substantive conceptions of
justice that ensure equal outcomes. Differences of opinion occur over
the principles governing those proposed distributions (for example,
need, desert, entitlement). Such principles are relevant to both human
and nonhuman, particularly in the context of extending the notion
of rights to environments and particular animals.
• Recognition refers to the equal dignity accorded to all, as well as the
politics of difference where everyone is recognised for their particular
distinctiveness. It is observed that 'A lack of recognition in the
social and political realms demonstrated by various forms of insults,
degradation and devaluation at both the individual and cultural
level inflicts damage to oppressed individuals and communities in
the political and cultural realms' (Schlosberg, 2007: 14). Derogatory
language used in relation to animals provides one illustration
of subordinated and disrespected identity as this applies to the
nonhuman (see Beirne, 2009). Here it is argued that contemporary
practices of cultural domination are such that the rights, interests and
needs of eco-systems and animals are rendered invisible in ordinary