I posted today over at Green Daily a note about India shopping the Appalachians for coal and coal mines. When I think of international environmental justice, I've always thought of rich nations like the U.S. dumping toxic manufacturing or waste on other countries with fewer resources or weaker economies.
What happens now as our economy is on the downturn and other countries can start counting on us for some of the more environmentally risky work, like coal mining? Well, for one, I think it brings the ideas of environmental justice into painfully sharp focus. But we don't have to just look within the U.S. for ongoing environmental injustices.
On the other side of the world, folks in the Ivory Coast are upset that Trafigura, a Dutch shipping company that hauled toxic waste to the Ivory Coast for disposal, has not been held accountable for pollution believed to have caused widespread illness.The BBC reports on the decision here. The chemical waste was dumped in Ivory Coast after both the Netherlands and Nigeria refused to take it. Yesterday two people were convicted (and seven acquitted) in the case, but Trafigura still admits no wrongdoing (and, according to the BBC article linked to above, no one from the Dutch company was actually present for the trial).
One of the major issues in the Ivory Coast case is that the government made the decision to accept the waste, but the negative affects of it were felt by the population at large. When the powerful few decide for the masses and make tragically bad decisions, we'd like to see them held accountable for their actions (sound familiar?). I guess the best case scenario here would be not to have to dispose of the waste in the first place. But assuming that toxic waste, in its various forms, is here to stay: how do we determine in an equitable fashion what is to be done with the waste?
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