Sustainability has become a core organizing principle within political life at the start of the 21st century. Sustainability as a political concept has been derived from the notion of sustainable development that was promulgated at the end of the 20th century through a series of high-profile international discussions concerning the environment. Most notably, the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro, commonly referred to as the Rio Earth Summit, was a seminal moment in popularizing sustainability internationally. The consideration of the environment within political discourse raises ethical concerns that challenge existing notions of justice and core principles underpinning the criminal justice system. Indeed, from its original green, environmental origins the concept of sustainability has become a more fundamental notion at the heart of public life today.
Sustainability: Incorporating Environmental Considerations Into Notions of Social Well-Being
The concept of sustainability is rooted within ecological and environmental understandings of the enduring capacity of life systems to be maintained over time. However, at the same time the concept stresses within social contexts the extent to which human society is dependent upon the natural environment in a wide-ranging and diverse number of ways. As such it is a biologically derived concept that is used in an analogous way to promote a way of social living that is more considerate and conscious of the extent to which nonhuman factors feature within healthy human societies.
A strength of sustainability, which is also its main weakness, is the extent to which it spans all aspects of social and ecological well-being. The strength of sustainability is that it provides a unifying concept through which individuals and societies can approach issues of justice. However, a consequence of its wide remit means that sustainability offers little in the way of establishing criminal justice priorities or resolving conflicts of interest. There is a danger that sustainability becomes little more than a feel-good notion that everyone supports, while maintaining radically divergent conceptions of what constitutes a just society. Nobody, for example, promotes unsustainability as an alternative to sustainability. Indeed, a criticism of the concept of sustainable development, the conceptual precursor to sustainability, was that the term development already contains within it a notion of sustainability: development that is unsustainable ceases to be development. It is therefore necessary to draw out the different ways in which sustainability is understood in order to appreciate how it informs debates about justice and ethics.
This raises an immediate point of contention regarding how much emphasis should be placed on the natural environment within people’s understanding of sustainability. For some, the natural environment is the central, defining, and unique aspect of establishing a sustainable way of living. Sustainability is thus defined in terms of the extent to which people organize human society in ways that are in tune with nature. Criminal justice measures are thus required to accommodate and reinforce the ecological constraints that nature places upon human society.
From an ecological perspective one might say that large cities are unsustainable because they are reliant upon resources beyond the natural capacity of the immediate environment. Furthermore, they produce an amount of waste that is beyond the capacity of natural systems to absorb and accommodate the by-products of human industry. Such large cities, it is continued, can only be sustained by making demands upon an increasingly wider area of nature, to the point that large cities globally begin to compete for the same natural resources in an unsustainable manner. One might say, therefore, that large cities, from this perspective, are not only unsustainable; they are also unjust.
The perception that much of today’s world is unjust is illustrated by consideration of how people manage to ensure that modern cities overcome natural constraints. It is argued that the measures taken require a degree of “borrowing” from future generations on a scale and in a manner that is more appropriately classified as stealing. For example, it is suggested that people are depleting natural resources today on a scale that will deprive human societies of tomorrow the resources they require. Similarly, people are polluting the natural environment today to the extent that it loses its capacity to sustain life on the scale required into the future. Alongside, but also potentially against this ecological viewpoint, is a social justice interpretation of sustainability that focuses more on preexisting social inequalities that are exacerbated by environmental degradation.
Advocates of this standpoint argue that despite overall improvements in human life, such as increased average life expectancy and decreasing mortality rates in infants, there is a widening gap between the fortunes of the wealthiest, most privileged sections of society and the poorest, most socially excluded communities. Emphasis is placed upon the vast discrepancies in social well-being between the “haves” and “have-nots” and the unsustainability of societies that do not redress the widening gap between the richest and poorest sections of society. Environmental issues still feature within these socially informed understandings of sustainability, but primarily in a way that emphasizes the extent to which environmental degradation impacts most significantly on those already socially disadvantaged. For example, rising sea levels are more problematic for poorer countries that lack the resources to provide sufficiently robust sea defenses. Likewise, the commodification of water as a fiscal means of addressing shortages in clean water sources is easier to accommodate in wealthier countries and among the richer sections of society. It is stressed that central to the understanding of sustainability there needs to be a strong ethos of social justice.
In many respects, one might want to say that sustainability needs to capture the insights from both the ecological and social justice perspectives outlined above. However, there is a very real tension between the two viewpoints. This tension concerns differing priorities that not only compete against each other but also potentially contradict one another. The ecological perspective in particular challenges existing notions of justice and ethical assumptions in ways that social justice perspectives do not.
There are two very important ways in which an ecologically framed sustainability ethic differs from a social justice one. First, this ethic is concerned with time frames that span generations rather than focusing on the needs and requirements of today. As such it places much more emphasis on the future as opposed to the present. Second, an ecologically framed sustainability ethic is concerned with notions of justice that include nonhuman species. There is greater emphasis placed upon biological diversity, of life support mechanisms that are on a planetary scale, and the intrinsic value of all life forms beyond what is perceived as a narrow focus on human life.
Intergenerational Versus Intragenerational Notions of Equity
This first aspect of an ecological perspective presents justice in relation to a notion of equality that is framed across generations. This is called intergenerational equity. It implies that a just society is one that can accommodate the needs and rights of those not yet born. Intergenerational equity has historical precedents. Traditional conservative perspectives have also stressed the importance of the bonds across generations by focusing on what society has inherited from the past. However, a unique aspect of the ecological perspective is the degree to which it emphasizes the responsibilities individuals have toward future generations.
The intergenerational equity approach to establish what is just is in contrast to the social justice perspective. Sustainability in social justice terms focuses more on the inequalities within current generations. This is called intragenerational equity. Justice within the notion of intragenerational equity is primarily focused on the redistribution of wealth and risk. A just and sustainable world is one in which social well-being is shared more equally across all sections of society, and across all societies globally.
Within the concept of intergenerational equity, on the other hand, there is greater emphasis placed upon the limitations of what the current generation can and should expect. A just and sustainable world, from the intergenerational equity perspective, is one that ensures future generations have access to natural resources that is at least equal to what the current generation inherited from previous generations.
Ethics of Sustainability: Transcending an Anthropocentric Approach to Justice
In considering how the concept of sustainability informs the understanding of ethics and justice it is important to note a second unique feature of an ecologically framed conception of sustainability. This relates to an emphasis upon the need to consider ethics beyond human beings. From an ecological perspective it is suggested that current notions of justice are shaped by anthropocentric (or “human-centered”) considerations. Sustainability, the ecological perspective suggests, can only be achieved if an ecocentric approach that recognizes the intrinsic value of nonhuman life is adopted.
The dispute between anthropocentric and ecocentric perspectives is a dominant theme within debates about environmental values, and it provides a focus for understanding how sustainability informs justice and ethics within criminal justice contexts. This dispute reflects opposing views as to whether the nonhuman world has value and, if so, whether this value is of an intrinsic or instrumental kind. Take, for example, the issue of biological diversity. All advocates of sustainability would say that this is something that should be valued but might disagree on whether biodiversity should be intrinsically or instrumentally valued.
There is an extreme version of an anthropocentric mind-set that says that only human life can be valued, and matters of justice only concern human beings. Likewise, from this perspective there can be no injustice against nonhuman species or against the planet. Such a narrow and extreme form of anthropocentricism would be rejected and challenged by all advocates of sustainability and indeed many critics of sustainability. Even prior to the establishment of sustainability as an organizing principle many jurisdictions had invoked laws and regulations to foster the well-being of nonhuman animals and indeed the planet. However, from an ecological perspective such measures are still seen to be shaped by anthropocentric attitudes, if and to the extent that the importance of nonhuman life is understood in instrumental terms. There remains a tension, therefore, within the concept of sustainability regarding the extent to which it relies upon an intrinsic or instrumental valuing of nonhuman life.
Sustainability and the Emergence of a Green Dilemma
Understanding the impact that sustainability has upon ethics and notions of justice within criminal justice contexts requires acknowledgement of the potential tensions between intergenerational and intragenerational demands and, likewise, anthropocentric versus nonanthropocentric approaches to nonhuman life.
These tensions present an exaggerated form of the liberal dilemma that already exists within liberally framed criminal justice systems. The liberal dilemma arises from wanting individuals to have the authority and space to make their own decisions, even if they are socially bad decisions, and to go about their business without interference from those in authority. At the same time, though, particular values are promoted from a liberal perspective, and so individuals become increasingly concerned with the things other people do with the freedom granted to them. For example, individuals do not want other people to make bad decisions that are homophobic or racist. Increasingly people are more prepared to legislate against such attitudes, more prepared to restrict an individual’s freedom when expressing these attitudes, and less prepared to tolerate a growing range of what are perceived to be illiberal, antisocial activities.
If one considers the liberal dilemma from the perspective of sustainability, one can see that the consequences of allowing people the space and freedom to act in a way that is deemed to be unsustainable has much greater and longer-lasting negative consequences. From the perspective of what might be called the “green dilemma” it is argued that ecologically bad decisions impact everyone and in ways that span across generations. There is, therefore, even greater urgency and more willingness required of those in authority to take action against individuals failing to comply with principles of sustainability.
A challenge for criminal justice systems today is finding ways to manage this tension. On the one hand, sustainability is a concept that champions a much more democratic and socially informed understanding of what constitutes a healthy human society. Likewise, it promotes a greater understanding of how individuals and societies are all interconnected and mutually responsible for each other’s well-being. However, at the same time, the concept of sustainability makes people much more conscious of the potentially dire consequences of not adapting to a more sustainable way of living.
The specter of ecological catastrophe looms large in people’s minds. Dystopian visions of an ecologically degraded future are common in fiction. In the real world today individuals are seeing the destructive impact environmental disasters can have, such as the 2010 Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill in the Gulf of Mexico that affected the coastlines of Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida. More generally, natural disasters, such as Hurricane Katrina in 2005, cause not only scarcity but also serious social disorder and corresponding criminal opportunities. The potential seriousness of the environmental problems confronting human societies, and the ensuing criminality and disorder that such problems imply, is a matter of some concern for policy makers across criminal justice sectors today.
In providing appropriate criminal justice responses to problems arising from environmental disasters and ecological degradation it is all too easy to anticipate calls to impose greater restrictions upon people’s freedoms and to introduce more intrusive and extensive crime control measures. Criminal justice bodies will be increasingly confronted with difficult arguments in which socially informed values might clash with ecological imperatives. There will, in environmental terms, be a tension between realizing intragenerational equity concerns that prioritize the needs of those most discriminated against and disadvantaged, and the intergenerational equity concerns that prioritize the needs of future generations and the broader needs of the planet’s survival. Such a dystopian view of the future might be easily dismissed as scaremongering speculation. However, one cannot dismiss so easily the extent to which environmental problems impose themselves on human societies in ways that challenge existing notions of justice.
Likewise, they pose new ethical dilemmas that require people to think beyond the interactions between living individuals, communities, and state authorities. Indeed, a feature of the environmental debates that gave rise to the concept of sustainability is the extent to which the current environmental predicament is explained as a consequence of the ethical inappropriateness of the values and attitudes that underpin and shape public institutions. It is impossible to engage with the concept of sustainability without appreciating the extent to which environmental and social problems are understood as an expression of ethical failings.
Sustainability, Limits, and the Elevation of Morality
Underpinning the concept of sustainability is a focus on limits that is absent within liberal democratic and socialist analyses of human society. This is especially so when sustainability has at its core a concern for the natural environment. An overriding imperative of green thought is that humanity needs to reduce the impact it is having upon the planet. This requires all individuals and all social institutions to think more about what they do and to justify their most basic activities on a day-to-day basis. From this perspective even something as simple as going to the toilet becomes a deeply moral issue. Modern lavatories are taken for granted and people pay little attention to the impact they have upon the environment. However, at a time when the scarcity of water is predicted to be a major concern in the near future, the amount of water used in the removal of human waste is of genuine concern.
From all of these considerations one starts to get a picture of how sustainability informs the current notion of justice. But there are potential contradictions depending on how one defines sustainability. While one should avoid creating unnecessary, unhelpful, and false dichotomies, one cannot ignore competing priority claims within sustainability debates. For example, should individuals and governments be focusing on existing injustices that are exacerbated by environmental degradation, or should they be emphasizing a form of justice that can transcend generational boundaries? Should they be focused on individuals and companies that act in ways that are detrimental to the environment, or should they be emphasizing the need for fundamental changes in the way people organize society and live their lives? Should the focus be on the responsibilities individuals have toward the natural environment and nonhuman species, or should they emphasize the responsibilities they have to each other as fellow human beings with a commitment to addressing social inequalities? The answers to these questions shape the interpretation of sustainability and the extent to which it is likely to transform the understanding of justice and question the assumptions that inform ethical reasoning within current criminal justice debates.
The logic of sustainability demands a coherent idea of what it means to be a good citizen. Living in a sustainable manner requires of individuals, companies, and governments a degree of self-sacrifice in terms of the amount of resources they consume. This in turn requires a clear idea of, and commitment to, a coherent idea of community. The concept of sustainability demands from a criminal justice system the mechanisms for ensuring that individuals, companies, and governments make the necessary sacrifices in order to achieve a sustainable way of life. This presents ethical questions and conceptions of justice that transcend long-established liberal principles and values that have shaped the current understanding of criminal justice.
Bibliography:
- Benton, Ted. “Ecology, Community and Justice: The Meaning of Green.” In Issues in Green Criminology, P. Beirne and N. South, eds. Cullompton, UK: Willan, 2007.
- Fiorino, D. J. The New Environmental Regulation. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2006.
- Lynch, M. J. and P. B. Stretsky. “The Meaning of Green: Contrasting Criminological Perspectives.” Theoretical Criminology, v.7/2 (2003).
- White, Rob, ed. Global Environmental Harm: Criminological Perspectives. Cullompton, UK: Willan, 2010.
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