CONSORTIUM: GLOBAL PROBLEMS, KNOWLEDGE, INSTITUTIONS AND POLICIES

PROJECT 2.: HUMAN RIGHTS, JUSTICE AND THE GLOBAL CHANGE

Dr. Juha Räikkä, senior lecturer

Dr. Markku Oksanen, post-doc researcher (Academy of Finland) Lancaster University year 2000

MA Pia Halme, doctoral student, University of Aberdeen 1999-2000

It is our aim to make a theoretical analysis of political, economic and legal responses to global change from the point of view of moral and political philosophy. It seems that these responses to changes in the natural world typically require the creation of global normative institutions that are based on certain shared beliefs and values. Amongst the most important of these bases of value -- if not the most important one -- is the idea of human rights. It is clear that human rights violations often coincide with environmental degradation in which cases referring to human rights legislation may also stop these practices. But damaging practices can also be justified in terms of human rights. In other words, their normative status is apparently ambiguous. It is our task to consider more closely human rights thinking and its role in policy making and to identify the limits of it in regard to the global change. Our points of departure are the following basic questions: Who are the subjects of these rights? What is the good they have rights to? On what grounds can human rights be justified? Are these rights inalienable? Are they absolute? If rights are universal as human rights are claimed to be, are the correlative duties universal as well, i.e. who are obliged to do what?

Once we have achieved to formulate a theory on human rights, we shall proceed to examine more closely the relationship between human rights and the environment. Here the issues of international justice, which arise from the recognition of global environmental problems, are at the centre of the study. For example, in the international negotiations on climate change it has been a focal issue how to share fairly, or equally, the burdens and benefits of policy responses. How should understand the concept of justice and equity?

We shall also pay attention to the presumed weaknesses of the idea of human rights. One worry stems from the notice that a universal solution may constitute a problem concerning the cultural diversity on Earth. To some extent, the protection of cultural diversity and biodiversity, people and the environment, go hand in hand. With the devastation of rain forests, for example, disappear traditional cultures, and with traditional communities disappears indigenous knowledge of the value and use of plants as well as invaluable knowledge of sustainable use of land. We also have to ponder the possibility of group-differentiated, or special, rights, so that it would depend on person membership in a group what kind of rights he/she has, and whether this idea is compatible with the requirement of equity.