Environmental Justice and Peacebuilding in the Middle East
Publisher: Peace Review
Author(s): Ilan Alleson and Stuart Schoenfeld
Date: 2007
Topics: Governance, Renewable Resources
Countries: Israel, Jordan, Palestine
Concern over the global environmental crisis may be aligned with contrasting discourses. On the one hand, it is invoked in the sentiment, "we are all in it together." Whether the scale of reference is the entire planet, region, or nation, this discourse leads to calls for cooperation. Typically, environmental cooperation involves management plans, new policy initiatives and technological innovations. On the other hand, the global environmental crisis is also invoked in an environmental justice discourse, which is about privilege, asymmetric power relations,exploitation, and oppression. The logic of this discourse leads to a strategy of changing power relations so that the environment is managed equitably.