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Environmental Transformative Justice: Responding to Ecocide City University of New York (CUNY) CUNY Academic Works All Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects 6-2020 Environmental Transformative Justice: Responding to Ecocide Manuel Rodeiro The Graduate Center, City University of New York How does access to this work benefit ou?y Let us know! More information about this work at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/3734 Discover additional works at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu This work is made publicly available by the City University of New York (CUNY). Contact: [email protected] ENVIRONMENTAL TRANSFORMATIVE JUSTICE: RESPONDING TO ECOCIDE By MANUEL RODEIRO A dissertation submitted to the Graduate Faculty in Philosophy in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, The City University of New York 2020 i © 2020 MANUEL RODEIRO All Rights Reserved ii Environmental Transformative Justice: Responding to Ecocide By Manuel Rodeiro This manuscript has been read and accepted for the Graduate Faculty in Philosophy in satisfaction of the dissertation requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. ________________________ ____________________________________ Date Omar Dahbour Chair of Examining Committee ________________________ ____________________________________ Date Nicholas Pappas Executive Officer Supervisory Committee: Jeffrey Blustein Michael Menser Charles Mills THE CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK iii ABSTRACT Environmental Transformative Justice: Responding to Ecocide By Manuel Rodeiro Advisor: Omar Dahbour My dissertation’s central objective is to normatively devise ethically appropriate sociopolitical and juridical responses to ecocide (i.e., grave environmental harm). More specifically, the work seeks to philosophically engage the ethical question of what is owed to human societies that are displaced due to intentional environmental destruction. The motivation behind the project stems from the lack of academic research (excluding a pocket of recent analysis of the international community’s obligation to assist ‘climate refugees’) involving the question: “What ought to be afforded victims of environmental harm?” The dearth of scholarship is surprising, considering growing global concerns, vis-à-vis accelerating rates of environmental degradation, which if allowed to continue, will generate wide-ranging national and international environmental crises and disasters in the twenty-first century and beyond. The dissertation attempts to remedy this situation by bringing environmental issues under the purview of the philosophical species of justice known as Transitional Justice. The novelty of such an approach is its assertion that ‘social transformation’ rather than merely ‘correcting the harm done’ or ‘restoring the status quo’ is necessary for overcoming these kinds of wrongs because absent social change, the conditions that reinforce, entrench, and reproduce these sorts of injustices remain in place. Since the focus is on transforming communities’ relationships and interactions with their environment, instead of simply repairing the damage from past injuries, the dissertation offers a full account of what I call environmental transformative justice. To achieve this the dissertation establishes the context in which environmental transformative justice is operative because of harm suffered (i.e., social death and loss of vital interests stemming from intentional environmental destruction) and the manner in which the harm occurred (i.e., direct, indirect, or negligent state action); employs a Rawlsian constructivist theory of justice to determine its ideal aims; offers guidance on how to pursue these aims by exploring the relationship between constructivist and comparative approaches to justice (e.g., Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum); identifies actors’ responsibilities for pursuing these aims by developing a notion of common but differentiated responsibility based on Iris Young’s two-tiered model of responsibility, and supports the assertion that environmental transformative justice ought to be pursued from within a Transitional Justice framework, by demonstrating ways in which Transitional Justice mechanisms (e.g., criminal tribunals, truth commissions, public apologies, pardons, lustration, memorialization, reparations, and constitutional conventions) can assist in furthering environmental aims (i.e., promoting ecological sustainability, preservation, and restoration). iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to express my deepest appreciation to my advisor Omar Dahbour and the rest of my committee Jeffrey Blustein, Michael Menser, and Charles Mills for their immense support and insightful contribution throughout the dissertation process. I am deeply indebted to the entire CUNY Graduate Center philosophy community for furthering my intellectual and professional growth and development. The completion of my dissertation would not have been possible without the support, care, nurturing, patience, and love that my family, friends, and fiancé have given me, for which I cannot begin to express my thanks. Lastly, my dissertation is dedicated to all those I may have intentionally or unintentionally harmed in my life. v CONTENTS Page INTRODUCTION………………………………………………………………………………1 CHAPTER 1……………………………………………………………………………………11 CHAPTER 2……………………………………………………………………………………79 CHAPTER 3……………………………………………………………………………………167 CHAPTER 4……………………………………………………………………………………238 REFERENCES…………………………………………………………………………………323 vi INTRODUCTION Excluding a pocket of recent scholarship investigating the international community’s legal and ethical obligations to assist the subset of victims known as ‘climate refugees’ (Ferracioli 2014, Eckersley 2015, Gendreau 2017, and Herington 2017), academics have roundly ignored the general question of: “What ought to be afforded victims of environmental harm?” The theoretical neglect is so pronounced and pervasive that even prior to broaching normative questions (e.g., “What do these victims deserve?” and “Who ought to be responsible for assisting the victims?”), the basic ontological questions (e.g., “What are environmental harms?” and “Who are environmental victims?”) have received scarce analysis. Hence, my dissertation’s core aspiration is to stimulate this vital discussion by cohesively delving into the above questions through the domain of political philosophy, in the hope of developing a framework for determining normatively appropriate responses to severe environmental harms, i.e., offer a theory of environmental transformative justice for post-ecocide states.1 The goal is to provide post-ecocide communities insight and guidance on how to best remodel, alter, and remove (pre)existing conditions responsible for generating wrongs, while correcting the harms victims suffered.2 Thus, the focus is on transforming communities’ relationships and interactions with their environment, instead of simply repairing the damage 1 Transformative justice seeks to repair past harms and change relations, structures, practices, and institutions responsible for wrongs by making them more inclusive, fair, and less prone to generate harms in the future. “Transformative justice is defined as transformative change that emphasizes local agency and resources, the prioritization of process rather than preconceived outcomes and the challenging of unequal and intersecting power relationships and structures of exclusion at both the local and the global level” (Gready and Simon 2014: 340). 2 Henceforth, “post-ecocide states/societies” will refer to states/societies that are in the process of enacting environmental transformative justice after ecocide; “ecocidal states/societies” will refer to states/societies that still engage in ecocidal activity, and “ecofriendly states/societies” will refer to states/societies that have completed the environmental transformative justice process. 1 from past injuries. A justification for embracing a transformative approach lies in the fact that unless structures and practices are altered, the possibility of repeating wrongs in the future remains. Nevertheless, one may ask: “Why must we wait until after the harms have occurred to begin the process of social transformation?” Waiting is indeed unnecessary, as, ideally, we ought to take preemptive and preventative action to ensure environmental harms do not occur in the first place. Ultimately, however, a quick glance at the litany of disasters, tragedies, and injustices of history ought to make one weary of our proactive ability to avoid wrongs. Furthermore, the work contends that our collective reactive attitudes to grave harms play a central role in furnishing the impetus to spur social change, i.e., without experiencing the negative consequences, there is less motivation to take action to alter patterns of behavior. Accordingly, the dissertation suggests that pursuing environmental transformative justice offers an opening for (re)examining and (re)conceptualizing our practices, habits, values, norms, and priorities toward nature; in that reparative and reconciliatory activities represent an opportunity for progressively departing from current destructive and exploitative treatments of nature, thereby achieving and promoting sustainable stewardship.3 The work thus proposes that focusing on the need for environmental transformative justice in actual post-ecocide communities provides provocation and direction for awakening awareness and understanding of the impact of humans on the environment and the impact of the environment on humans –
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