Fenceline Communities and Environmentally Damaging Projects: An Asymptotically Evolving Right To Veto

Abstract

The issue of unwanted facilities siting was discussed for decades by academics, as far as the local community—government dialogue is concerned, in the so-called NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) and LULU (Locally Unwanted Land Uses) literature; as for the local community-transnational corporation dialogue, it has been more recently analyzed in the stakeholder engagement and the SLO (Social License to Operate) literature, which dissects the emerging transnational corporations’ obligation of engaging local communities prior to developing a noxious project. Both frameworks suggest that local communities with some sociological identifier—ethnicity, race, class—have gotten closer to the right to veto a polluting project, but this does not hold for communities defined merely geographically (“fenceline” communities). However, scholars and institutions lately referring to indigenous communities’ right to veto often use expressions such as “indigenous communities and other affected groups,” indicating a perceived need for expanding this right. Starting from this observation, this Article explores the unclear borders of the right to Free, Prior, and Informed Consent.