Understanding Environmental Harm and Justice Claims in the Global South: Crimes of the Powerful and Peoples’ Resistance

Abstract

Historically, the commodification of nature has been accompanied by, and resulted in, violent processes generating both human and environmental harm. Ever since colonial times, the plundering of natural resources has served the interests of powerful groups that have benefited from dehumanizing practices carried out in the name of civilization and discourses upheld by the western cultural and political project of modernity. At the Berlin Conference of 1884–1885 (also known as the Congo Conference or the West Africa Conference), organized by German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck, various European states asserted their sovereignty over Africa and divided the continent into colonies. These declarations were fundamental to legitimizing the extraction of minerals from African territories that contributed to the industrial development of Europe and its role in world politics as a hegemonic actor.