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 25, 2024January 25, 2024

Conquering Peaks, Defying Odds: Saul Luciano Lliuya, “The Hero of the Andes”

By Maria LeLourec

After Dean Randall Abate shared the inspiring climate justice story of Saul Luciano Lliuya, who is Peruvian like us, we became enchanted and did not hesitate to answer in the affirmative when he asked if Fiorella and I could interview him in the deep Andes of Peru. We knew that it was going to be challenging to prepare for this interview due to final exams, the holidays, and the remoteness of the area, but we happily accepted this exciting challenge.

October 23, 2023December 19, 2023

The 2023 Earth Law Symposium and the Road Ahead

Participants in the 2023 Earth Law Symposium

By Johanna Adashek

At the intersection of people and the planet, Earth Law is a broad term encompassing the rights to a healthy environment, rights of nature, Indigenous rights, rights to future generations, and much more. Earth law is foundational in its emphasis on interdependency among Earth’s systems and its recognition that humans also flourish when the Earth can flourish. Earth law takes an ecocentric view, recognizing the inherent importance of protecting the Earth for the sake of the Earth itself. GW Law’s Environmental and Energy Law Program is proud to have co-hosted the 2023 Earth Law Symposium with the Earth Law Center, where experts, leaders, academics, and practitioners discussed and analyzed shortcomings and advancements in current statutes, regulations, legal systems, and governance strategies to protect our fragile planet and its vulnerable communities.

July 28, 2023October 2, 2023

An Introduction to U.S. State Environmental Rights Amendments

By Johanna Adashek

Environmental rights declare the right of people to a certain level of environmental protection, just as civil rights cement the people’s rights to due process or freedom of speech. Environmental rights can be in the form of a law, constitutional amendment, or most recently, within a UN Declaration. This post will focus mainly on environmental rights amendments (ERAs), or those enumerated within a constitution. Further, while dozens of countries have ERAs within their constitutions, this post will focus on ERAs within U.S. state constitutions. This post will review the states with ERAs and different approaches to ERA protections, discuss the utility of ERAs, and describe recent developments involving ERAs.