Climate Justice & Inequality: Environmental Law and the Politics of Extraction — with Eugene Kung

Author: 
Eugene Kung
Am Johal
Melissa Roach
Paige Smith
Kathy Feng
Alyha Bardi
Peer reviewed: 
No, item is not peer reviewed.
Scholarly level: 
Faculty/Staff
Date created: 
2021-09-21
Keywords: 
Eugene Kung
climate justice
environmental law
inequality
pipelines
climate crisis
climate policy
colonialism
human rights
climate change
legislation
legal reform
Indigenous sovereignty
eurocentrism
Abstract: 

Environmental lawyer Eugene Kung joins Below the Radar’s Climate Justice & Inequality series to discuss pipeline politics in BC and the role of law in fighting the climate crisis. Eugene shares about how law has been wielded as a mechanism for enacting colonialism, and the various ways it can instead be a tool for effecting major change and upholding human rights.

Eugene discusses different legal strategies to mitigate climate change — from legislation and law reform, to legal challenges against extractive energy projects that drive pollution. He speaks to a positive shift that has seen more Indigenous nations asserting their own laws and sovereignty in decision-making, as caretakers of their lands. 

He and Am also discuss how to decentre whiteness and Western perspectives in the climate justice movement and the importance of connecting environmentalism with other social movements and systemic issues.

Description: 

Eugene Kung (he/him/his) is a staff lawyer with West Coast Environmental Law (WCEL), working on Tar Sands, Pipelines and Tankers, as well as with RELAW. He is committed to human rights, social justice and environmental justice and has been working to stop the Kinder Morgan TransMountain expansion project.

Eugene was born and raised in Burnaby BC, holds a BA from UBC (2001) and JD from Dalhousie (2006) and was called to the BC Bar in 2008. Prior to joining WCEL, Eugene was a staff lawyer with the BC Public Interest Advocacy Centre (BCPIAC) where he had a social justice law practice in the areas of Constitutional, Human Rights, Administrative, Anti-Poverty and Regulatory law. He has represented low and fixed-income ratepayers before the BC Utilities Commission (BCUC); low-income tenants of slumlords; Treeplanters and Temporary Foreign Workers before the BC Human Rights Tribunal; and families of deceased farmworkers at a coroner’s inquest.


Resources: 

— “The Time of the Lone Wolf is Over” by Eugene Kung: https://www.policyalternatives.ca/sites/default/files/uploads/publications/National%20Office/2016/07/OS124_Kung.pdf

— Eugene’s writings for Policy Options: https://policyoptions.irpp.org/authors/eugene-kung/

— West Coast Environmental Law: https://wcel.org/

— BC Public Interest Advocacy Centre: http://bcpiac.com/

— Climate Justice Webinar Series: “Just Is”≠ Justice: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nr5-J6H0rl0

— 2018 Tsleil-Waututh v. Canada case brief: https://www.dgwlaw.ca/case-brief-tsleil-waututh-v-canada-attorney-general-2018-fca-153/

— “Tim Hortons Workers File Double-Double BC Rights Complaint”: https://www.huffpost.com/archive/ca/entry/tim-hortons-complaint-bc-human-rights-dawson-creek_n_2104706

— “BC Refuses Calls to Compensate African Tree-planters”: https://thetyee.ca/News/2014/06/05/BC-Treeplanter-Compensation/

— Read the Trans Mountain Assessment Report by the Tsleil-Waututh Nation: https://twnsacredtrust.ca/assessment-report-download/


Language: 
English
Document type: 
Audio
Rights: 
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External link: 
Climate Justice & Inequality: Environmental Law and the Politics of Extraction — with Eugene Kung
Transcript
Citation: 
Johal, Am. “Climate Justice & Inequality: Environmental Law and the Politics of Extraction — with Eugene Kung” Below the Radar, SFU’s Vancity Office of Community Engagement. Podcast audio, September 21, 2021. https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/series/climate-justice-inequality/134-eugene-kung.html
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