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Environmental Justice Organizations, Liabilities and Trade

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Areas of expertise & Fields of activity:	Economic and Social: Agriculture Biodiversity Climate Change Coorporate Accountability Criminal Justice Indigenous Peoples Justice Sustainable Development: Agriculture Biodiversity Climate change Consumption and production patterns Energy Forests Integrated decision-making Mining Protecting and managing the natural resources Trade and environment Waste (hazardous) Waste (radioactive) Waste (solid) Waste Management
Geographic scope:	International
Country of activity:	Namibia Belgium Slovenia France Kenya Argentina South Africa Nigeria India Türkiye Brazil Italy Ecuador Malawi Bulgaria Spain
Millennium Development Goals:	Ensure environmental sustainability
Mission statement:	EJOLT is a large collaborative project funded by the EU FP7 program bringing science and society together to catalogue ecological distribution conflicts and work towards confronting environmental injustice. The Environmental Justice Organisations, Liabilities and Trade is an FP7 project supported by the European Commission that will run from 2011-2015. The project supports the work of Environmental Justice Organisations, uniting scientists, activist organisations, think-tanks, policy-makers from the fields of environmental law, environmental health, political ecology, ecological economics, to talk about issues related to Ecological Distribution. Central concepts are Ecological Debts (or Environmental Liabilities) and Ecologically Unequal Exchange. We focus on the use of these concepts in science and in environmental activism and policy-making. The Action Plan The Action Plan of EJOLT comprises the production of databases, networking platforms, mutual casemstudy development, workshops, possible legal actions, policy papers, dissemination of best practices, round-table events, and training materials on environmental conflicts for EJOs, other stakeholders and policy-makers, geared to a key issue of great immediate interest to society, namely: Which are the underlying causes of increasing ecological distribution conflicts at different scales, and how to turn such conflicts into forces for environmental sustainability? This entails: To compile a large database, ‘The Map of Environmental Justice’, that will comprise an atlas of thematic and regional maps covering ecological distribution conflicts around the world, drawing on activist knowledge and linking them with material trade flows among other variables, and providing a platform for communication among EJOs and scientists working on related issues. To make available the latest knowledge on indicators of social metabolism for the analysis of the environmental impacts of nuclear energy, oil and gas extraction, biomass extraction, mining and ship breaking and e-waste, focusing on the whole ‘commodity chains’ (from extraction to waste disposal or recovery). To unveil some of the socio-environmental and public health impacts which are invisible to the consumers in the main resource importing and waste exporting countries, and to empower stakeholders to monitor and understand risks to environmental health. To apply methodologies that allow the study of the valuation languages deployed in ecological distribution conflicts, particularly related to environmental liabilities. To improve the basis for EJOs to undertake legal actions regarding environmental liabilities or campaign for institutional changes in corporate accountability. To develop the basis for EJOs to use notions and methods of calculation of ecologically unequal exchange and ecological debt. To hold workshops and develop an online resource library for EJOs on political ecology and public policies, environmental health (including popular epidemiology), ecologically unequal trade and the ecological debt, and legal redress. To translate project findings into concrete policy proposals to be communicated to decision makers in European, international institutions and corporate bodies. The emphasis of the recommendations will be on increasing corporate accountability and on legal institutional mechanisms to seek alternatives to and minimize harmful resource extraction and waste disposal.
Year established:	2011
Year of registration:	2011
Organizational structure:	EJOLT is a consortium of academics and activists.
Number and type of members:	Members Include: Acción Ecológica – OCMAL. The Observatorio de Conflictos Mineros de América Latina, housed by Accion Ecológica (AE) in Quito, defends communities affected by the mining boom in Latin America since the 1990s http://www.ocmal.org ANPED – Northern Alliance for Sustainability ANPED (Northern Alliance for Sustainability) is an international non-profit organisation and movement for strong sustainability http://www.anped.org BOG – Bogazici University http://www.boun.edu.tr/tr-TR/Content/Default.aspx Business and Human Rights The purpose of the Resource Centre of BHR (London, UK) is to increase the transparency of companies’ human rights impacts http://www.business-humanrights.org CCS – Centre for Civil Society http://ccs.ukzn.ac.za/ CDCA – Centro Documentazione Conflitti Ambientali http://www.cdca.it/ CFJ – Citizens For Justice http://www.cfjmalawi.org/ CRIIRAD – Commission de Recherche et d’Information Indépendantes sur la RADioactivité http://www.criirad.org/ ELN – Earthlife Namibia ERA – Environmental Rights Action Nigeria FIOCRUZ – Fundação Oswaldo Cruz http://www.ensp.fiocruz.br FOCUS – Association for Sustainable Development http://www.focus.si GRAIN – Genetic Resources Action International http://www.grain.org/ IFF – Interdisziplinäre Forschung und Fortbildung http://www.uni-klu.ac.at/socec/inhalt/1.htm JNU – Jawaharlal Nehru University Lund University http://www.lunduniversity.lu.se/ Nature Kenya http://www.naturekenya.org REEDS – International Centre for Research in Ecological Economics, Eco-Innovation and Tool Development for Sustainability The Research in Ecological Economics and Development for Sustainability unit is a centre at the UVSQ University http://www.uvsq.fr/ SERI – Sustainable Europe Research Institute http://www.seri.de UAB – Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona The Institute for Environmental Science and Technology (ICTA-UAB) is one of the top research centres on enviromental studies in Spain. ICTA-UAB will coordinate EJOLT http://icta.uab.es/ URV – Universitat Rovira i Virgili The Tarragona Centre for Environmental Law Studies (CEDAT, URV) is a research and education centre on environmental law http://www.cedat.cat WRM – World Rainforest Movement http://www.wrm.org.uy Za Zemiata - Bulgaria http://www.zazemiata.org
Funding structure:	Foreign and international grants
Funding structure other:	Funded by the EU FP7 Science and Society Program

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