Rights-Based Approaches: Do Environmental Movements Make a Dent on Policy?

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.