The Concept of Environmental Justice and Its Reflection on Regional and International Documents

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, has been collected with an emphasis on non-discrimination between people and the right to food for all. The progress of civilization, especially after the Industrial Revolution led to the destruction of the environment. Human efforts to protect the environment were intensified in the late twentieth century but most of this activity has focused on the prevention of environmental degradation and has ignored the effects of environmental degradation on people. In international law, generally, there is no mechanism for compensation for people injured from environmental degradation. The concept of environmental justice is a new topic in international law. For this purpose, at first, we try to differentiate between environmental justice and environmentalism. Afterwards, we examine the aspects of environmental justice in regional and international documents for indicating the necessity of a legal system for environmental justice.