Cosmopolitan environmental harm conventions

The global politics of the environment is increasingly a politics of transnational harm that raises important questions about injustice and global ethics. One response to the injustices of environmental harm is found in the demands for cosmopolitan harm conventions—social practices that define what is permissible in relations between human beings in a way that does not privilege the interests of insiders over outsiders. This article explores the theory and practice of cosmopolitan environmental harm conventions with particular attention to the issues of rights, obligations and a politics of consent. It concludes that while many existing environmental harm conventions are often only marginally cosmopolitan, despite appearances to the contrary, cosmopolitan ideas are sufficiently robust to provide a theoretical and ethical road map for dealing with global environmental injustice.