Environmental justice in the courts

The focus of this chapter is on environmental justice in the courts, which makes up only one small portion of the movement’s overall concerns and activities. More specifically, this chapter emphasizes corrective justice, or the role of contemporary U.S. courts in punishing environmental offenders and/or reversing environmental injustices. Prior to examining the way courts function with respect to environmental justice we briefly examine major federal environmental justice policies that attempt to direct environmental enforcement. We focus on federal environmental justice policy because this is the level of governance at which a significant amount of court activity has occurred.