What is the relationship between human rights and the environment, environmental justice and civic engagement? How are issues pertaining to conflict and minerals extraction; land/water grabs and global hunger; migration and climate change; access to water and sanitation; toxic-waste dumps in low-income areas; certification schemes and corporate social responsibility and indigenous peoples related to human rights? In order to understand these questions, students will examine the evolution of human rights conventions and their understanding of natural resources and the environment as well as looking at the development of environmental conventions and their understanding of rights. Students will also explore how non-governmental organizations and transnational activists have adopted a rights based approach vis-à-vis the environment and natural resources. Projects will include developing a group report on the environment and human rights, specific case studies, and other digital media products.
Image: Map of countries which include the right to water in their national constitutions. This map is part of a larger group project on the environment and water as human rights that emerged from this independent study in Spring 2013. Click here for more information about the project.