Abstract
Environmental movements replace deliberation and adjudication by the language of rights, livelihoods or value systems. They usually bring together like-minded stakeholders on issues of common interest. Drawing from the documentation for India, this chapter addresses the following issues: What role can such environmental movements play in the formulation of policy and through what channels? Further, what role have they played in the last three decades in India? Significant environmental movements are analysed from the viewpoint of the impact they have had. Further, impact is defined in three ways, each of which has the potential of initiating an iterative process that influences decision-making in the future. An immediate impact could be in terms of an act passed by the parliament or an executive order influencing the project at hand. Alternatively, impact may be on sectoral policy or the manner in which future projects are evaluated or granted approval. Finally, a change in the macro policy environment could occur which results in a mainstreaming of environmental issues.
We find that environmental justice movements, to have an impact on policy, have to associate themselves with institutions of the judiciary, the executive or the legislature. The executive can be compelled to act only by the legislature through newer laws or by the heavy hand of the courts. Unless the process reaches its logical conclusion within the domain of the political economy, it remains an ‘also ran’ in the arena of policy.
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Notes
- 1.
See, for instance, the discussions on land and forest policy in Chap. 2.
- 2.
See Sills, David L. (1968).
- 3.
See Chap. 2 for some details of these studies.
- 4.
Some will claim that it was partly responsible for the introduction of Joint Forest Management in the country. Chapter 2 discusses other parallel influences on policy.
- 5.
‘In a two-to-one decision, it invoked the common law doctrine of latches to rule that the NBA had failed to raise its objections in a timely manner, that the Court was not going to review issues related to design of the Sardar Sarovar Dam itself but only the fundamental rights of the oustees guaranteed under Article 21 of the Constitution of India, and reminded the parties that the decision of a Water Disputes Tribunal (WDT) could not be challenged by private parties once it became binding on the states involved’. See Sahoo et al. (2014).
- 6.
See Gadgil (2014) for a review of the case.
- 7.
For more details, see Cirone (2012).
- 8.
See Joy, K.J. et al. (2008)
- 9.
See the review by Appaswamy in Joy et al. (2008).
- 10.
- 11.
The EJOLT project has documented about 2000 conflicts and produced an atlas of country and thematic maps (www.Ejolt.org).
- 12.
For a detailed comparative analysis of the two reports, see Chopra (2014).
- 13.
See Jairam Ramesh (2010), for a succinct exposition of the state of the debate and the policymakers’ consequent dilemma.
- 14.
One finds a reference to a manifesto for a Green Party around 2014. See Taghioff (2014).
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Chopra, K. (2017). Rights-Based Approaches: Do Environmental Movements Make a Dent on Policy?. In: Development and Environmental Policy in India. SpringerBriefs in Economics. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-3761-0_4
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