LibGuides: Resources for Environmental Justice & Community Lawyering: Home

The 17 Principles of Environmental Justice

17 Principles of Environmental Justice
Principles of Environmental Justice. Drafted and adopted in 1991 at the National People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit.

Also See:

Groundtruth: 17 Principles of Environmental Justice—30 Years Later
Podcasts reflecting on the Environmental Justice Movement

Organizations & Websites

Center for Diversity & The Environment
Center for Health, Environment & Justice
Center for Health and Environmental Justice The Center for Health, Environment & Justice helps build healthy communities nationwide. Since its founding in 1981, CHEJ has grown into the nation’s leading resource for grassroots environmental activism, a ground-breaking, progressive organization with a vision for clean, green neighborhoods built from hard-won experience fighting for environmental justice.
Climate Justice Alliance
Communities for a Better Environment Founded in 1978, Communities for a Better Environment (CBE) is one of the preeminent environmental justice organizations in the nation.
Deep South Center for Environmental Justice
EarthJustice: Because the Earth Needs a Good Lawyer
Environmental Justice Foundation
Envirofacts
Grassroots Global Justice Alliance
Greenaction for Health and Environmental Justice
NAACP Environmental & Climate Justice
National Resource Defense Council NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council) was founded in 1970 by a group of law students and attorneys at the forefront of the environmental movement. Today's leadership team and board of trustees makes sure the organization continues to work to ensure the rights of all people to clean air, clean water, and healthy communities.
Natural Resources Defense Council
Union of Concerned Scientists
WE ACT for Environmental Justice

Agencies & Gov. Resources

Mapping & Data Tools

CDC Environmental Justice Index (EJI) Explorer
The Environmental Justice Index (EJI) scores census tracts using a percentile ranking which represents the proportion of tracts that experience cumulative impacts of environmental burden and injustice equal to or lower than a tract of interest.
EJ Atlas
Global environmental justice screening tool.
EJScreen: Environmental Justice Screening and Mapping Tool
Environmental justice and screening tool developed by the EPA. Combines environmental and socioeconomic indicators.
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Gateway
Discover and find information and documents relating to key environmental issues affected the United States, and the science, research, technology, policy and legislation behind those issues.

Reference Librarian

Khelani Clay

Email Me

Environmental Studies Databases

Web of Science This link opens in a new window
Web of Science indexes core journal articles, conference proceedings, data sets, and other resources in the sciences, social sciences, arts, and humanities.

Climate Extra
News and analysis covering climate policy developments in U.S. federal and state governments.
Previously InsideEPA/climate, Clean Energy Report, and Carbon Control News.
Includes access to general news available on the InsideEPA.com homepage.
Environment and Energy Publishing (E&E) Publications
Daily coverage of U.S. and international environmental and energy policy and markets. Includes the full text of the following publications: Climatewire, E&E Daily, Greenwire, and E&E News PM.
GreenFILE
Provides citations and abstracts to journal and magazine articles, book chapters and government documents on many aspects of the environment, including global warming, energy conservation, and pollution.

Searching for Material on Westlaw

Energy & Environment Resources
All Westlaw Environmental resources, including laws, secondary sources and news.
Environmental Data Resources
Contains data and other information related to the environment. Includes information on state and federal resources including state environmental records, the toxic substance control act and consent decrees amongst other things.
Environmental Law Dockets
Docket information on active and inactive Environmental Law cases filed in US District Courts, US Courts of Appeal, U.S. Bankruptcy Courts nationwide and selected State Courts.

Relevant Treatises on Westlaw

Law of Toxic Torts by Michael Dore
Call Number: Available Online
Law of Chemical Regulation & Hazardous Waste by Donald W. Stever

Searching for Material on Lexis

Browse Environmental Law Topics on Lexis
An outline of various environmental law topics indexed to Lexis content. Allows for finding cases, laws, regulations, administrative material and secondary sources.
Environmental Law on Lexis
Lexis Portal for everything Environmental Law. Includes laws, secondary sources, legislative histories, news and other legal information about environmental law.
Environmental Law Reviews & Journals on Lexis

Relevant Treatises on Lexis

The Law of Hazardous Waste by Susan Cooke & Christopher Davis, eds.
Call Number: Available as an e-Book
Brownfields Law and Practice: The Cleanup and Redevelopment of Contaminated Land
Call Number: Available as an e-Book
A Guide to Toxic Torts by Margie Searcy-Alford
Call Number: Available as an e-Book

Law Reviews & Journals

There are a number of law reviews and journals that are focused on environmental law and justice.

Journals [Non-Legal]

Race, Poverty & the Environment by Reimagine!
Call Number: Available from J-Stor
Publication Date: 1990-
Environmental Policy & Law (Online)
Call Number: Available Online
Publication Date: 1975-
William and Mary Environmental Law and Policy Review by College of William & Mary School of Law
Call Number: Available Online
Environmental Justice
Call Number: Available Online
Publication Date: 2008-
Race, Poverty & The Environment
Call Number: Available Online
Publication Date: 1990-
Environmental Ethics
Call Number: Available Online
Publication Date: 1979-
Journal of Agricultural & Environmental Ethics
Call Number: Available Online
Publication Date: 1991-

News & Issues

Sampling of Articles

Shelia Foster & Brian Glick, Integrative Lawyering: Navigating the Political Economy of Urban Redevelopment, 95 California Law Review 1999 (2007).

Marianne Engelman Lado & Kenneth Rumelt, Pipeline Struggles: Case Studies in Ground Up Lawyering, 45 Harvard Environmental Law Review 377 (2021).

Monica Taylor & Bronwyn Lay, Community Lawyering & Climate Justice: A New Frontier, 47 Alternative Law Journal, no. 3, at 199-203 (2022).

Matthew Woodward, Not Approved for Human Consumption: A Study of the Denmark Water Crisis, A Call for Reforming the SDWA, and a Demand for Community Lawyering in Rural America, 45 William and Mary Environmental Law & Policy Review 881 (2021).

Find more articles on environmental justice and community lawyering

Books

Black Faces, White Spaces by Carolyn Finney Why are African Americans so underrepresented when it comes to interest in nature, outdoor recreation, and environmentalism? In this thought-provoking study, Carolyn Finney looks beyond the discourse of the environmental justice movement to examine how the natural environment has been understood, commodified, and represented by both white and black Americans. Bridging the fields of environmental history, cultural studies, critical race studies, and geography, Finney argues that the legacies of slavery, Jim Crow, and racial violence have shaped cultural understandings of the "great outdoors" and determined who should and can have access to natural spaces.
Call Number: Request a copy through the Consortium Loan Service
ISBN: 9781469614489
Publication Date: 2014
Clean and White by Carl A. Zimring Clean and White offers a history of environmental racism in the United States focusing on constructions of race and hygiene. This book tells the history of the corrosive idea that whites are clean and those who are not white are dirty. From the age of Thomas Jefferson to the Memphis Public Workers strike of 1968 through the present day, ideas about race and waste have shaped where people have lived, where people have worked, and how American society's wastes have been managed. The material consequences of these attitudes endured and expanded through the twentieth century, shaping waste management systems and environmental inequalities that endure into the twenty-first century.
Call Number: Available from JStor
ISBN: 9781479826940
Publication Date: 2016
Environmental Justice in a Moment of Danger by Julie Sze Environmental Justice in a Moment of Danger examines mobilizations and movements, from protests at Standing Rock to activism in Puerto Rico in the wake of Hurricane Maria. Environmental justice movements fight, survive, love, and create in the face of violence that challenges the conditions of life itself. Exploring dispossession, deregulation, privatization, and inequality, this book is the essential primer on environmental justice, packed with cautiously hopeful stories for the future.
Call Number: Request a copy through Interlibrary Loan
ISBN: 9780520300736
Publication Date: 2020
Farming While Black by Leah Penniman; Karen Washington (Foreword by) Farming While Black is the first comprehensive "how to" guide for aspiring African-heritage growers to reclaim their dignity as agriculturists and for all farmers to understand the distinct, technical contributions of African-heritage people to sustainable agriculture.
Call Number: Request a copy through Interlibrary Loan
ISBN: 1603587624
Publication Date: 2018
From the Ground Up by Luke W. Cole; Sheila R. Foster From the Ground Up critically examines one of the fastest growing social movements in the United States--the movement for environmental justice. Tracing the movement's roots, Luke Cole and Sheila Foster combine long-time activism with powerful storytelling to provide gripping case studies of communities across the US--towns like Kettleman City, California; Chester, Pennsylvania; and Dilkon, Arizona--and their struggles against corporate polluters. The authors use social, economic and legal analysis to reveal the historical and contemporary causes for environmental racism. Environmental justice struggles, they demonstrate, transform individuals, communities, institutions and the nation as a whole.
Call Number: General Collection - 2nd Floor GE180 .C65 2001
ISBN: 0814715370
Publication Date: 2000-11-01
Poisoned Water: How the Citizens of Flint, Michigan, Fought for Their Lives and Warned the Nation by Candy J. Cooper; Marc Aronson In 2014, Flint, Michigan, was a cash-strapped city that had been built up, then abandoned by General Motors. As part of a plan to save money, government officials decided that Flint would temporarily switch its water supply from Lake Huron to the Flint River. Through interviews with residents and intensive research into legal records and news accounts, this work reveals the true story of Flint.Poisoned Water shows not just how the crisis unfolded in 2014, but also the history of racism and segregation that led up to it, the beliefs and attitudes that fueled it, and how the people of Flint fought--and are still fighting--for clean water and healthy lives.
Call Number: Request a copy through Interlibrary Loan
ISBN: 9781547602322
Publication Date: 2020
A Terrible Thing to Waste by Harriet A. Washington Discusses environmental racism - a confluence of racism and other institutional factors that relegate marginalized communities to living and working near sites of toxic waste, pollution, and insufficient sanitation services. Investigates heavy metals, neurotoxins, deficient prenatal care, bad nutrition, and even pathogens as chief agents influencing intelligence to explain why communities of color are disproportionately affected -- and what can be done to remedy this devastating problem
Call Number: Request a copy through the Consortium Loan Service
ISBN: 9780316509435
Publication Date: 2019
Unequal Protection by Robert D. Bullard; John Lewis (Foreword by); Benjamin F. Chavis (Preface by) Discusses how lawmakers racially discriminate when creating environmental policies, how environmental protection laws are unfairly regulated, and how pollution excessively impacts communities of colo
Call Number: General Collection - 2nd Floor GE197 .U54 1994
ISBN: 9780871563804
Publication Date: 1996
Toxic Communities by Dorceta Taylor Due to entrenched segregation, zoning ordinances that privilege wealthier communities, or because businesses have found the 'paths of least resistance,' there are many hazardous waste and toxic facilities in these communities, leading residents to experience health and wellness problems on top of the race and class discrimination most already experience.
Call Number: Request a copy through the Consortium Loan Service
ISBN: 9781479852390
Publication Date: 2014
There's Something in the Water by Ingrid R. G. Waldron Examines the legacy of environmental racism and its health impacts in Indigenous and Black communities in Canada, using Nova Scotia as a case study, and the grassroots resistance activities by Indigenous and Black communities against the pollution and poisoning of their communities
Call Number: Available for Interlibrary Loan from American University Library
ISBN: 9781773630571
Publication Date: 2018
The Routledge Handbook of Environmental Movements by Maria Grasso (Editor); Marco Giugni (Editor)
Call Number: Available as an e-Book
ISBN: 9780367855680
Publication Date: 2022
The Oxford Handbook of Environmental Ethics by Stephen M. Gardiner (Editor); Allen Thompson
Call Number: Available as an e-Book
ISBN: 9780199941339
Publication Date: 2016
Climate Change from the Streets by Michael Mendez
Call Number: Available as an e-Book
ISBN: 0300232152
Publication Date: 2020