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>>> Ecology and Human Rights
>>> Transnational Justice
Introductory Literature
Rawls, John:
A Theory of Justice.
Oxford University Press, 1999.
A classic, providing a substancial analysis and theory of justice which has become a founding contribution for the understanding of justice and socio-political order within contemporary societies. Rawls introduces two principles of justice which he develops on the basis of the classical contract theories according to Locke, Rousseau and, most importantly, Kant.
Martinez-Alier, Juan:
The Environmentalism of the Poor. A Study of Ecological Conflicts and Valuation.
Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 2002.
Empirical and conceptual analysis of those environmental conflicts in the world in which the rights to subsistance of local communities are at stake. Martinez-Alier tries to develop a theory of ecological injustice from a perspective of the South.
Heinrich Boell Foundation (ed.):
The Jo'burg Memo: Fairness in a Fragile World. Memorandum for the World Summit on Sustainable Development.
Berlin: Heinrich Boell Foundation, 2002.
Download at www.joburgmemo.org
The memo, elaborated for the WSSD in Johannesburg, was woked on by 16 international activists, politicians and journalists directed by Wolfgang Sachs. It formulates an agenda of international environmental politics following the dictates of fairness.
Sachs, Wolfgang:
Planet Dialectics. Explorations in Environment and Development.
London: Zed Books, 1999.
Essays on the subject of the relations between ecology, globalisation and justice in the perspective of cultural environmental and development studies.
Fraser, Nancy:
Justice Interrupts: Critical Reflections on the Postsocialist Condition.
Routledge, 1996.
Critical diagnosis of the situation of contemporary political thought. Fraser indicates varieties of discourse analysis which could possibly help overcoming the ongoing division between the cultural and the social. She tries to integrate culturally orientated politics as well as social politics into the current debates of feminist theory.
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Ecology and Human Rights
Braßel, Frank; Windfuhr, Michael:
Welthandel und Menschenrechte,
Bonn: Dietz, 1995.
A descriptive and readable book which can be highly recommended as an introduction. On the basis of various concrete examples, the authors show how social and environmental rights are being marginalised in the South by the market power of companies.
Steiner, Henry J.; Alston, Philipp (eds):
International Human Rights in Context.
Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996.
A collection of essays and commentaries on the topic of international codification and institutionalisation of human rights. Fundamental overview of the field, providing representative secondary texts which serve as an introduction to the relevant debates.
Pogge, Thomas:
World Poverty and Human Rights.
Cambridge: Polity Press, 2002.
Demanding, highly systematic text of a philosopher following John Rawls. Pogge founds the rights of the weak and the duties of the powerful on the basis of the current global poverty crisis.
Shue, Henry:
Basic Rights. Subsistence, Affluence and U.S. Foreign Policy.
Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1980.
One of the early and influential books which tries to embed the importance of subsistence rights in the thinking about human rights.
Barnes, Peter:
Who Owns the Tky? Our Common Assets and the Future of Capitalism.
Washington et al.: Island Press, 2001.
Comprehensible introduction into the question of intra-national climate justice: are there any ways to guarantee that the emission rights negotiated between states will benefit their citizens? Barnes develops the notion of a "Sky Trust" which administrates the emission rights of a country and passes their sales revenues on to citizens.
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International Justice
>>> The Right to Use the Atmosphere
>>> The Right to Use Genetic Resources
The Right to Use the Atmosphere
Banuri, Tariq; Weyant, John:
Setting the Stage: Climate Change and Sustainable Development.
In: B. Metz, O. Davidson, R. Swart und J. Pan (eds.),
Climate Change 2001: Mitigation. Contribution of Working Group III to the Third Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
Cambridge et al.: Cambridge University Press, 2001, pp 73-114.
The text from the third assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) provides an overwiew of the connections between economic development and the emission of greenhouse gases in relation to thoughts about the challenges creating a "just" climate policy. The authors discuss the previous and current devlopments in international climate policy and outline possible prospects for the future.
Baer, Paul; Harte, John; Haya, Barbara; Herzog, Antonia V.; Holdren, John;
Hultman, Nathan E.; Kamen, Daniel M.; Norgaard, Richard B.; Raymond, Leigh:
Equity and Greenhouse Responsibility.
In: Science 289 (2000), p. 2287.
Summary of arguments concerning equal rights to use the athmosphere for everybody: On just one page the authors present a convincing plea for the establishment of a principle of equal per capita emission entitlements in connection to the future development of the climate regime.
Further information is provided by: Athanasiou/Baer: Dead Heat. Global Justice and Global Warming. New York: Seven Stories Press, 2002.
Grubb, Michael; Sebenius, James; Magalhaes, Antonio; Subak, Susan:
Sharing the Burden.
In: Irving M. Mintzer (ed.),
Confronting Climate Change. Risks, Implications and Responses.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992, p. 305-322.
One of the classic texts from the early years of climate policy. Different possibilities for the distribution of emission rights are presented and discussed in terms of their individual moral justification The text still provides a good introduction into the climate debate.
Baumert, Kevin A. (ed.):
Building on the Kyoto Protokol: Options for Protecting the Climate.
Washington: World Resources Institute, 2002.
Download at http://climate.wri.org/pubs_pdf.cfm?PubID=3762
Overview of the currently discussed options in politics and science for the further development of a (just) climate regime. Several authors with different points of view and attitudes present their ideas for the future development of a global climate policy.
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The Right to Use Genetic Resources
Brand, Ulrich; Görg, Christoph:
Access & Benefit Sharing. Zugang und Vorteilsausgleich - das Zentrum des Konfliktfelds Biodiversität.
Bonn: Germanwatch; Forum Umwelt & Entwicklung, 2001.
A highly readable and sound lead-in to the topic "access and use of genetic resources". The background is provided by a critical view on international politics of biological diversity and the role of the state in conflict with local population groups. The author gives an overview of the present regulations under international law and cases of conflict between different regulations (CBD vs. TRIPS).
WTO - World Trade Organization:
The Relationship Between the TRIPs Agreement and the Convention on Biological Diversity. IP/C/W/368.
Geneva: WTO, 2002.
The document gives an overview of the (potential) conflicts between the TRIPS-agreement (especially art. 27.3b) and the UN-convention on biological diversity. It facilitates a classification of the distinct positions of countries and thereby enables the reader to comprehend the different constellations in the negotiations. The appendix lists all important documents.
Ekbere, J. A.:
The OAU's Model Law. The Protection of the Rights of Local Communities, Farmers and Breeders, and for the Regulation of Access to Biological Resources. An Explanatory Booklet.
Lagos: Organization of African Unity, 2001.
EA handbook of the "Organization of African Unity", which is meant to be a manual for African governments in order to help the ediction of regulations concerning the access to biological resources. It indicates how the protection of local community rights against an external access to biological resources can be elaborated.
Kuppe, René:
Indigene Völker, Ressourcen und traditionelles Wissen.
In: U. Brand, M. Kalcsics (eds.):
Wem gehört die Natur? Konflikte um genetische Ressourcen in Lateinamerika. Atención! Jahrbuch des österreichischen Lateinamerika-Instituts. Band 5.
Frankfurt/M.: Brandes & Apsel, 2002, S. 112-133.
The authors provide a comprehensive description of the diverse socio-economic relations held by traditional indigenous peoples to the nature surrounding them.
The authors clarify that the preservation of biological diversity plays an integral role in those communities’ ways of using resources. The present system of intellectual ownership-rights can therefore be interpreted as a new type of colonialisation that endangers the complex interrelations between man and nature.
Shiva, Vandana:
Biopiracy: The Plunder of Nature and Knowledge.
Boston: South End Press, 1997.
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