The Human Right to a Green Future: Environmental Rights and Intergenerational Justice

by Richard P. Hiskes

Overview

This book presents an argument for environmental human rights as the basis of intergenerational environmental justice. It argues that the rights to clean air, water, and soil should be seen as the environmental human rights of both present and future generations. It presents several new conceptualizations central to the development of theories of both human rights and justice, including emergent human rights, reflexive reciprocity as the foundation of justice, and a communitarian foundation for human rights that both protects the rights of future generations and makes possible an international consensus on human rights, beginning with environmental human rights. In the process of making the case for environmental human rights, the book surveys and contributes to the entire fields of human rights theory and environmental justice.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780521696142
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	12/08/2008
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	184
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Richard P. Hiskes is Professor of Political Science and Senior Political Theorist at the University of Connecticut. He is the Editor of the Journal of Human Rights and Director of the Human Rights Minor. He is the author or co-author of four other books, most recently of Democracy, Risk and Community: Environmental Hazards and the Evolution of Liberalism (1998). Professor Hiskes has published work in a variety of topics within political theory, human rights theory, environmental ethics, and science and technology policy. He has published articles in many journals, including Review of Politics, Human Rights Quarterly, Public Affairs Quarterly, Human Rights Review, Hume Studies, Women and Politics, Policy Studies, and others.

Table of Contents

1. Environmental human rights and intergenerational justice; 2. Emergent human rights, identity, harms and duties; 3. Reflexive reciprocity and intergenerational environmental justice; 4. Cosmopolitan ethics, communal reciprocity, and global environmentalism; 5. Toward a global consensus on environmental human rights; 6. Human rights as inheritance: instituting intergenerational environmental justice; 7. Conclusion: environmental justice and the emergent future of human rights.

Editorial Reviews

"...the book argues strongly for creating a legal framework for environmentalism as a component of human rights. If the implied program of environmental constitutionalism were adopted, it could provide a basis for legal activism within states, where environmentalists would have an increasingly robust set of international norms to demand accountability and action from governments." Finally, although the book focuses on empowering local actors to demand environmental compliance, the eventual result will be the reification of universal environmental rights as more states link environmentalism to broadly held norms on human welfare. For environmental studies scholars, advocates, and activists, this legalist framework provides a basis for generating political will at the local level for green policy."
- Reviewed by Kemi Fuentes George, Department of Government, the College of William and Mary


"...The Human Right to a Green Future is a provocative exploration of the use of rights language to address environmental issues. Readers interested in the philosophy of rights and justice will find a careful and well documented discussion of many of the major issues surrounding the expanding idea of human rights."
The Law and Politics Book Review, David Dehnel, Augustana College

From the Publisher