Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2004
Abstract
First, I will describe the role of tourism in the current Cuban economy and identify the environmental concerns this development poses. In particular, this analysis will explore the environmental justice concerns of Cuba's emerging tourist infrastructure. Second, the article will examine both practical and theoretical efforts to include claims for freedom of access to environmental benefits under the environmental justice rubric. The article will both examine the relevance and lessons of those efforts for Cuba and do so with reference to notions of liberty rather than equality-the standard principle on which environmental justice claims are advanced. This section will conclude by examining other arguments that might be used to support access to environmental amenities. Third and finally, the article will sketch out some suggestions that might be used for Cuba to ensure liberty of access to environmental benefits as part of a broader environmental justice effort. In doing so, the article largely rejects a view of Cuban exceptionalism-the notion that, by virtue of its fierce adherence to an official socialist ideology (and its defiance of the United States), Cuba's dilemmas are different from those faced by other nations in the Caribbean and in Latin and South America generally.
Recommended Citation
14 Transnat'l L. & Contemp. Probs. 55 (2004).