This article focuses on the issues of environmental injustice and human rights violations across nations. Using existing documents, the patterns of the transnational toxic waste trade and natural resource exploitation and the bases of global environmental injustice are explored. The dependency/world-system perspective on toxic waste exports and imports and the environmental justice framework are used to analyze transnational toxic waste dumping schemes and resource exploitation in underdeveloped nations. With an emphasis on the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People, available evidence suggests that environmental activists, powerless indigenous subpopulations, and other minorities face the danger of environmental injustice and human rights abuse, especially under authoritarian regimes. The need for stronger international norms protecting human rights to a safe and sound environment is emphasized, and it is argued that environmental injustice needs to be included as a component of human rights protocols. Policy implications of theoretical analyses are offered.

This study addresses the critical issue of hazardous wastes and associated human health problems. The issue of inequitable distribution of environmental hazards by race is discussed with special reference to a municipal solid waste landfill and the petrochemical plants as the principal environmental stressors in the Baton Rouge Standard Metropolitan Statistical Area (SMSA). In a random sample of 213 respondents, the majority considered toxic wastes as a major threat to human health. Other findings indicate that whereas Blacks are most likely to reside near hazardous waste facilities, they express the same level of environmental concern as Whites. Thus, race is found not to be a significant factor in explaining environmental concerns and attitudes. The theoretical implication of findings and future research needs are discussed.

This study explores the extent to which people's prior experience of a natural disaster influenced subsequent behavior concerning the threats of a hydrometeorological disaster and if duration of residency in a disaster-prone landscape affects the extent of preparedness for an impending disaster. Mixed methods research strategies involving survey, field observation, and participant observations at several locations including rescue and evacuation centers in New Orleans, Louisiana, Austin, Texas, and Lawrenceville, Georgia, were used, during the immediate impact phase, emergency shelter phase, and postimpact and recovery phase of Katrina catastrophe. For the survey, a sample of 598 subjects completed a 15-page, 54-item questionnaire addressing various aspects of the Katrina flood in the New Orleans Metropolitan Area. The qualitative aspect consists of field observations of the event, interviews, and direct comments by the victims dispersed across the South. In the regression analysis performed, prior experience was found to be less important than friends' and family members' influence in determining evacuation behavior. However, duration of residency and prior experience were found to be slightly significant in predicting the odds of evacuation.

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This article presents the case history and empirical analyses of specific characteristics of communities facing serious health-threatening environmental conditions in the New Orleans metropolitan area (NOMA). The attitudes and perceptions of local residents concerning environmental quality and associated health problems are assessed. A survey was conducted to determine respondents’ viewpoints about environmental risks, related health problems, and the well-being and level of community satisfaction in communities with severe environmental burdens in NOMA. The impacts of polluting industries and an abandoned toxic waste site recently placed on the Environmental Protection Agency’s National Priority List (NPL) are assessed. Among the findings, people in an NPL community exhibit different attitudinal, perceptual, and adaptive behavioral tendencies concerning the environment and health relative to their counterparts in non-NPL communities with benign environmental conditions. The respondents in an NPL community reported higher illnesses, lower community life satisfaction, and associate their somatic dysfunctions with poor environmental conditions.