From its earliest days, US laws were designed to enforce white supremacist power structures, including environmental racism. Despite this intent, some laws can serve as important vehicles to amplify the voice of people of color in the low-income neighborhoods that suffer the most from adverse health effects of pollution, such as asthma, cardiovascular illness, and cancer.
CBE’s theory of change looks to a Just Transition, which includes deep democracy, changing the rules, stopping the bad and building the good. CBE’s approach to community lawyering holds these principles at its core by acknowledging that our communities have historically been excluded and denied access to legal avenues. By engaging community members and partners in building cases, we engage in deep democracy and expand what it means to use the law as a tool for environmental justice.
Decades of victories from CBE’s cutting-edge lawyering have prevented and reduced pollution in California’s hardest-hit communities. Litigation, in conjunction with focused, grassroots organizing and coalition building efforts, amplifies the voice of people of color in the low-income neighborhoods. CBE’s legal work also gives Californians a seat at the policy table to make their cases before state and local government agencies.
CBE’s legal strategy generates results that are local, statewide, national and international—it supports local organizing and wins court victories in global-scale policy debates that have local environmental impacts, such as pollution trading, freight transport, air quality, and climate change.
