“Everything and anything that influences the environment
directly influences our human condition, and a violation
of the environment is a violation of our human rights.”
- Jorge Daniel Taillant, Director
Center for Human Rights and Environment

Environment and Human Rights
PHIL 220

Dr Tom Kerns
North Seattle Community College

Click here to register

see also:
Environment and Human Rights Advisory

Course Description:

This Environment and Human Rights course examines the idea of human rights, the origins of the human rights movement and the recent work that connects human rights concerns to environmental issues. It explores ways in which environmental issues can be addressed when viewed through a human rights lens.

The course looks at specific human rights norms such as the rights

• to security of person
• to health
• to inviolability of the home
• to a safe workplace
• to a healthy environment
• the right of mothers and children to special consideration,
• and others

It examines human rights declarations, treaties and laws in which these rights have been articulated, such as

• The Universal Declaration of Human Rights
• The American Declaration on the Rights and Duties of Man
• The Convention on the Rights of the Child
• The Draft Declaration on Human Rights and the Environment
• The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples
• and others

The course thus deals with ethical questions at the heart of many environmental issues, including ethical issues entailed by environmentally induced illnesses (such as cancers, reproductive disorders, respiratory and neurological disorders, etc.) and with more general ethical questions about the maintenance and improvement of the health and well-being of communities at both the local and global levels.

 

Assigned readings for the course include

• Ursula Le Guin, The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas (available online)
• Elliott & Lamm, "A Moral Code for a Finite World", 2002 (available online)
• David Feldshuh, Miss Evers' Boys, Dramatists Play Service Inc
• The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, The Nuremberg Code, The American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man, and several other articles and documents (all available online)
• Johannes Morsink, The Universal Declaration of Human Rights: Origins, Drafting and Intent, University of Pennsylvania Press, 1999
• Kerns, Environmentally Induced Illnesses: Ethics, Risk Assessment and Human Rights, McFarland, 2001
• Picolotti, Romina and Jorge Daniel Taillant, Linking Human Rights and the Environment, University of Arizona Press, 2003
• Henrik Ibsen (Arthur Miller adaptation), Enemy of the People, Penguin Press
• Jack Donnelly, Universal Human Rights in Theory and Practice, Cornell University Press, 2003
• U S Declaration of Independence, Americans with Disabilities Act, etc
• Belden, Russonello and Stewart, Public Opinion Research on Human Rights in the U.S., 2007
  
  
  
• This book is not on the list of required or recommended readings for this course, mostly because it is expensive and it focuses more on the legal than the moral aspects of human rights. It is a good and useful book, though, so I've had our NSCC library put it on reserve for your use if you'd like to borrow it for a short time. John Bonine and Svitlana Kravchenko, Human Rights and the Environment: Cases, Law and Policy (Carolina Academic Press, 2008)
  

Some topics explored in the course

• Introduction to basic concepts in human health and disease, including the fundamentals of environmentally and occupationally induced illness
  
• Introduction to the fundamentals of ethical decision-making, including teleological, deontological, and other methods of ethical thinking
  
• An exploration of ethical relativism, ethical essentialism and the claim that some ethical norms can be applicable to all human beings
• Philosophies of rights and obligation, sources of rights and duties and kinds of obligation (e.g., are there obligations to not-yet-actual future generations, to non-human animals, to the earth?)
• Origins and history of the human rights movement
• The distinction between human rights standards as ethical norms and legal norms
• Case studies using current environment and human rights issues
• Examination of ethical issues surrounding environmentally induced illnesses such as cancers, neurological conditions, chemical sensitivity disorders, reproductive disorders and asthma and other respiratory diseases.
• The conflicts and synergies in the efforts to protect both public health and human rights
• The environmental movement and the concept of sustainability
• How international human rights instruments and norms are applicable to environmental concerns
• NGOs, agencies and international courts and commissions that bear on environment and human rights issues
• Practical methods for addressing environmental issues from a human rights perspective

Business stuff

• Getting started
• Course requirements
• Approximate class schedule
• Weekly assignments
• Grading
• Self Evaluations
• Class policies
• Research projects
  

Course materials

• Mini-lectures
• Discussion questions
• Study questions
  

Research Resources

• New York Times reference site. This site has dictionaries, encyclopedias, fact books, glossaries, search engines, style manuals, several large libraries, telephone directories, and every other kind of reference source available. It may become your primary reference site
• A collection of philosophical dictionaries
• The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
• The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
• Seattle Community College District Libraries
• Library of Congress

Relevant Non-governmental Organizations (NGOs)

• NGOs focused on a human rights approach to environmental issues

Dictionaries

• Online Webster's dictionary
• Webster's online thesaurus
• Oxford English Dictionary (subscription required)
  

Books available in full text on the web

• The Harvard Classics
• The Great Books of the Western World
• The Perseus Project
• The Christian Classics Ethereal Library, a broad collection of works that have been influential in the West