Kiera McGuire
Editor-in-Chief
On Thursday, Sept. 17, Lean Lecture Hall opened its doors to students, faculty and staff to celebrate Constitution Day. September 17 marks the day on which the United States Constitution was signed by 39 delegates from 12 states in 1787, creating a governing doctrine that still holds power today. To mark Constitution Day and Citizenship Day, organizations and schools across the country hold events to educate people on and celebrate the Constitution. One of these events took place at the College, and focused on how environmental justice has come to the forefront of discussions on constitutional rights.
To open the Constitution Day Lecture, Associate Professor of Philosophy Evan Riley introduced alum speaker Mae Manupipatpong ’14. Manupipatpong, who studied political science and philosophy at Wooster, is now a senior attorney at Earthjustice, a nonprofit international law practice.
According to Manupipatpong, the goal of Earthjustice is to “protect the right to a healthy environment,” representing clients free of charge. To do this, Earthjustice “partner[s] with organizations and communities around the world to establish, strengthen, and enforce national and international legal protections for the environment and human health,” according to Manupipatpong’s accompanying slideshow presentation.
Some of Earthjustice’s previous clients include the Sierra Club, Oceana and Greenpeace USA, addressing issues that range from transitions to renewable energy to fossil fuel production and consumption.
Manupipatpong’s lecture was split into different major cases she worked on, all of which concerned different clients and related to different constitutional documents. One of the first cases Manupipatpong worked on, Sacchi v. Argentina (2019), focused on human rights in association with the climate crisis. At the time of the case, countries had already signed off on the 2015 Paris Agreement, which stated that United Nations countries would work to keep the global temperature below 1.5 Celsius due to the negative impact a higher temperature would have. A group of 16 children from different countries came together under the belief that governing bodies were not taking the appropriate action to limit their impact on global warming — particularly through greenhouse gas emissions — and claimed these countries were violating the Convention on the Rights of the Child, a treaty that outlines children’s human rights. Earthjustice represented the 16 children in this landmark case. While they ultimately did not win, the case shone a spotlight on the effects of greenhouse gas emissions on vulnerable populations.
Another case Manupipatpong worked on was the 2023 case La Oroya v. Peru. Residents of the Peruvian city La Oroya had high levels of lead in their blood due to pollutants in the air, soil and water from a metal smelter. These pollutants harmed inhabitants of the city, which was in violation of their right to a healthy environment. In the final ruling, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights ruled that corporations or governments that knowingly expose people to “unhealthy levels of industrial pollution” are in violation of international law, and that “governments must hold polluters accountable.”
A major point that Manupipatpong addressed in her lecture was that international courts tend to avoid “violating principles of national sovereignty,” meaning that courts are hesitant to give strict climate change targets.
Some countries and states –– like South Africa and Hawaii –– have adopted the right to a healthy environment in their constitutions. In South Africa, the Western Cape High Court ruled that oil and gas companies violated Section 24 of the national constitution, which states that everyone has the right to “an environment that is not harmful to their health or wellbeing.” In the Navahine F. v. Hawaii Department of Transportation case, 13 youths from across the state claimed that the Department of Transportation was not following the government’s ruling to meet a zero greenhouse gas emissions target by 2045, due to the increasing emissions in the state. The court mandated that government defenders join a partnership with the youths to follow decarbonization goals and create cleaner transportation infrastructure.
At the end of the lecture, Manupipatpong answered questions from the audience. In closing, she stated that environmental justice happens on the national and international level, and advocacy is needed to support environmental change.
