Ecoviolence and the Law: Supranational Normative Foundation of Ecocrime


Book Description

Exploring such acts of environmental violence as "ecocrimes," the author builds the case that the international law principles of jus cogens and erga omnes justify characterizing ecocrime as a "just crime" requiring action to curb their occurrence and punishment to deter them. The book discusses the obstacles that defining environmental assaults as "ecocrimes" will face both in national and international circumstances. The author concludes by proposing the creation of an International Environmental Court that would adjudicate "ecocrime" issues. This forward thinking work will be of great interest to all involved in the human rights issues of environmental threats. Published under the Transnational Publishers imprint.




Eco Crime and Genetically Modified Food


Book Description

The GM debate has been ongoing for over a decade, yet it has been contained in the scientific world and presented in technical terms. Eco Crime and Genetically Modified Food brings the debates about GM food into the social and criminological arena. This book highlights the criminal and harmful actions of state and corporate officials. It concludes that corporate and political corruption, uncertain science, bitter public opposition, growing farmer concern and bankruptcy, irreversible damage to biodervisty, corporate monopolies and exploitation, disregard for social and cultural practices, devastation of small scale and local agricultural economies, imminent threats to organics, weak regulation, and widespread political and biotech mistrust – do not provide the bases for advancing and progressing GM foods into the next decade. Yet, with the backing of the WTO, the US and UK Governments march on – but at what cost to future generations?




Forging a Socio-Legal Approach to Environmental Harms


Book Description

Environmental harms exert a significant toll and pose substantial economic costs on societies around the world. Although such harms have been studied from both legal and social science perspectives, these disciplinary-specific approaches are not, on their own, fully able to address the complexity of these environmental challenges. Many legal approaches, for example, are limited by their inattention to the motivations behind environmental offences, whereas many social science approaches are hindered by an insufficient grounding in current legislative frameworks. This edited collection constitutes a pioneering attempt to overcome these limitations by uniting legal and social science perspectives. Together, the book’s contributors forge an innovative socio-legal approach to more effectively respond to, and to prevent, environmental harms around the world. Integrating theoretical and empirical work, the book presents carefully selected illustrations of how legal and social science scholarship can be brought together to improve policies. The various chapters examine how a socio-legal approach can ultimately lead to a more comprehensive understanding of environmental harms, as well as to innovative and effective responses to such environmental offences.




Child Law


Book Description

Child Law starts with the question “Who is the Child?” In direct contrast to the CRC, which calls for putting the interests of the child first in all policies dealing with children, it appears that the interests of others are the major consideration de facto. In law, children’s right to protection is severely limited by the presence of a maximum age limit, with no consideration of the starting point: current and ongoing scientific research has demonstrated the effects of this non-consideration in a number of abnormalities and diseases, not only in children, but in adults and the elderly. The WHO has published a number of studies to that effect and the 2012 Report on Endocrine Disruptors more than confirms this claim. This and other scientific insights that have largely been ignored show the flaws and inadequacies of the legal regimes intended to protect children, in a number of areas, from the basic public health to the right to normal development; child labor law conventions; in conflict situations; as a result of climate and other events; children as illegal migrants and as inmates in prison camps.




Human Rights


Book Description

International law has evolved to protect human rights. But what are human rights? Does the term have the same meaning in a world being transformed by climate change and globalized trade? Are existing laws sufficient to ensure humanity’s survival? Drawing on case law and practice and examples from philosophy, law, and ecology, Laura Westra argues that the current system is not adequate: international law privileges individual over collective rights, permitting multinational corporations to overlook the collectivity and the environment in their quest for wealth and power. Unless policy makers redefine human rights and reformulate environmental law and policies to protect the preconditions for life itself -- water, food, clean air, and biodiversity -- humankind faces the complete loss of the ecological commons, the preservation of which is one of our most basic human rights. A new kind of cosmopolitanism, one centred on the United Nations, offers the best hope for preserving our common heritage and the survival of future generations.




Transnational Environmental Crime


Book Description

The essays selected for this volume illustrate the growing interest in and importance of crime that is both environmental and transnational in nature. The topics covered range from pollution and waste to biodiversity and wildlife crimes, and from the violation of human rights associated with the exploitation of natural resources through to the criminogenic implications of climate change. The collection provides insight into the nature and dynamics of this type of crime and examines in detail who is harmed and what can be done about it. Differential victimisation and contemporary developments in environmental law enforcement are also considered. Collectively, these essays lay the foundations for a criminology that is forward looking, global in its purview, and that deals with the key environmental issues of the present age.




Greening the Civil Codes: Comparative Private Law and Environmental Protection


Book Description

This book examines the greening of civil codes from a comparative perspective. It takes into account the increasing requirements of supranational rules, which favour measures to reduce global warming and its negative environmental impacts; it discusses the necessity to expand distributive justice given the current ecological emergency; and it reflects on which private law legal tools potentially may be employed to defend nature’s interests. The work fills a gap in the growing literature on developing rights of nature and ecosystem in transnational law. While the focus is on the environmental issues pertaining to the new civil codes and new projects of civil codes, the book promotes interdisciplinary research applicable to a range of environmental and natural resources–focused courses across the social sciences, especially those related to comparative law systems, legal anthropology, legal traditions in the world, political science and international relations.




EU Environmental Law, International Environmental Law, and Human Rights Law


Book Description

In EU Environmental Law, International Environmental Law, and Human Rights Law: The Case of Environmental Responsibility, Armelle Gouritin offers a critical appraisal of EU environmental responsibility law and asserts a new rights-based approach to international environmental law. This book addresses environmental damage, environmental harm, the grounds for environmental responsibility and the exceptions to the responsibility principle. A critical appraisal of EU Directives 2004/35 and 2008/99 is complemented by an analysis of the input of the European Court on Human Rights and international environmental law with a view to filling the gaps identified in the Directives. Gouritin offers a full analysis of the potential and limits of the rights-based approach applied to environmental responsibility.




Crime, Deviance and Society


Book Description

Crime, Deviance and Society: An Introduction to Sociological Criminology offers a comprehensive introduction to criminological theory. The book introduces readers to key sociological theories, such as anomie and strain, and examines how traditional approaches have influenced the ways in which crime and deviance are constructed. It provides a nuanced account of contemporary theories and debates, and includes chapters covering feminist criminology, critical masculinities, cultural criminology, green criminology, and postcolonial theory, among others. Case studies in each chapter demonstrate how sociological theories can manifest within and influence the criminal justice system and social policy. Each chapter also features margin definitions and timelines of contributions to key theories, reflection questions and end-of-chapter questions that prompt students reflection. Written by an expert team of academics from Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom, Crime, Deviance and Society is a highly engaging and accessible introduction to the field for students of criminology and criminal justice.




Crime


Book Description

Crime: Local and Global and its sister text Criminal Justice: Local and Global are two new teaching texts that aim to equip the reader with a critical understanding of the globally contested nature of 'crime' and 'justice'. Through an examination of key concepts and criminological approaches, the books illuminate the different ways in which crime is constructed, conceived and controlled. International case studies are used to demonstrate how 'crime' and 'justice' are historically and geographically located in terms of the global/local context, and how processes of criminalisation and punishment are mediated in contemporary societies. Crime: Local and Global covers the way local events (such as prostitution) have wider aspects than previously thought. Links with people traffickers, international organised crime and violence cannot be ignored any longer. Each crime or area of activity selected within this text has a global reach, and is made ever more possible due to the way globalisation has opened up markets, both legitimate and illegitimate. The book's approach and scope emphasises that we can no longer view 'crime' as something which occurs within certain jurisdictions, at certain times and in particular places. For example, the chapter on cybercrime highlights the 'illegal' acts that can be perpetrated by second lifers, anywhere in the world, but are they a crime?