Environmental Rights – The GW Point Source

January 28, 2025February 10, 2025

Galamsey and the Struggle for Ghana’s Future: Environmental Degradation and the Resistance Movement

Benedicta Osei-Boateng

Photo Credit: Ruth McDowall, featured in Detecting Gold Mining in Ghana, NASA Landsat Image Gallery.

The West African nation of Ghana is endowed with natural resources such as water, forests, and substantial deposits of high-value minerals including gold, diamonds, bauxite, and manganese. As a tropical country, Ghana enjoys a significant amount of sunshine to support the development of solar power. It also has an ample wind system and biomass base. Taken together, these renewable and nonrenewable resources make Ghana a resource-rich nation.

As is the case with most countries that abound with natural resources, in recent years Ghana has seen a dramatic rise in the deterioration of its natural resources primarily caused by small and medium-scale artisanal mining, popularly called “galamsey.” The term is a corrupted version of two words “gather and sell,” which connote the gathering and selling of gold. This practice has led to environmental degradation, land and water resource depletion, health hazards for miners, and social and economic impacts.[1] There is also medical evidence suggesting that galamsey activities have resulted in new health challenges including neonatal defects that are traceable to unregulated heavy metals like arsenic and mercury that have found their way into groundwater systems through illegal alluvial mining.

January 28, 2025February 11, 2025

Climate Change and Human Mobility: The Urban Challenge of Climate Displacement in Colombia

Laura Serna Mosquera

Photo credit: Climate Refugees

Climate change has become one of the most significant drivers of human mobility worldwide, forcing millions to leave their homes. The Groundswell report by the World Bank predicts that by 2050, 216 million people could be internally displaced due to climate-related factors. Similarly, the Internal Displacement Monitoring Center recorded 26.4 million new displacements caused by disasters in 2023 alone.^[1]

October 28, 2024February 11, 2025

Health Equity Policy & Advocacy Clinic – Environmental Justice Division Students Address Lead Poisoning Threats to Children

The Health Equity Policy & Advocacy Clinic – Environmental Justice (EJ) Division’s students Anna Aguilar, Sidney Lee, Jaylah Richie, and Emma Stinson successfully drafted and submitted comments to the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) on behalf of 20 organizations, associations, and individuals. The comments respond to the lowering of the definition of elevated blood lead level (EBLL) in the Lead Safe Housing Rule (LSHR) to match the current Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) blood lead reference value. The Clinic’s submission combines environmental justice, housing justice, and health equity principles and standards to argue for the protection of children from lead hazards. Specifically, the Clinic pointed out HUD’s significant delay in adopting the CDC reference value and urged HUD to engage in primary prevention to protect vulnerable children from lead poisoning and its permanent harm.

The students conducted legal and public health research and analysis, and stakeholder outreach activities. To prepare the comments, they answered administrative law questions, analyzed statutory language, reviewed scientific data, reached out to experts, created fact sheets, and collaborated with the Clinic’s partner organizations to review their findings and receive feedback. The students also alerted nonprofits and encouraged submissions that urged HUD to follow health-based and environmental justice best practices. The students’ outreach prompted many organizations to join their comment or send in their own comment that incorporated the Clinic comment by reference. In addition, GW Law and Medical School student groups joined the comment.

August 28, 2024August 28, 2024

Human Rights: The Pending Issue in the Upcoming Global Plastics Treaty

By Fernando Muñoz Dominguez

Photo credit: Naja Bertolt Jensen

For more than a century, plastics have facilitated considerable advancements in modern society in a wide range of fields including electronics, aerospace, construction, food packaging, and sports. These advances have come at a high price, however, as plastics have been detrimental to human health, the economy, and the environment.

March 25, 2024April 18, 2024

Heat Islands and Race in Washington, D.C.

By Dylan Basescu

When it comes to heat, not all neighborhoods in Washington, D.C. are created equal. In denser areas of the city with less wind, less green space, and less tree cover, heat radiates and is trapped at much higher rates that vary the ambient air temperature by up to 16 degrees Fahrenheit. This phenomenon is known as the urban heat island effect. This difference means different energy bills, emissions levels, health outcomes, and quality of life for thousands of residents. The District of Columbia has already noted this issue and implemented some programs to mitigate the heat island effect. However, D.C. can do more to mitigate heat islands in the most impacted communities in the District by expanding permeable surface replacements, creating a legal standard for tolerable heat, and installing new green roofs and roads in new construction.