Rights-Based Framework for Environmental Protection

Sor Juana argued passionately for human dignity and intellectual rights, establishing that certain capacities and protections are inherent to human personhood, not negotiable commodities. Applied to environmental justice, this establishes that everyone has fundamental rights that pollution, extraction, and environmental destruction violate: the right to clean water and air, to food security, to health, to cultural continuity, and to participate in decisions affecting one's territory. These rights cannot be traded away by governments or corporations for economic benefit. Yet current systems routinely sacrifice these rights for profit—communities of color breathe contaminated air so others profit from highways and refineries; Indigenous peoples lose forest homes so cattle ranches and plantations expand; agricultural workers poison themselves with pesticides while corporations externalize health costs. A rights-based climate justice framework positions environmental protection not as charity or charity but as fundamental justice. It means holding corporations and governments legally accountable for climate harms. It means recognizing Indigenous peoples' rights to territorial self-determination and resource control. It means climate solutions that guarantee livable conditions for all, not merely preventing catastrophe for the wealthy. Sor Juana's insistence on the inalienable rights of the marginalized provides philosophical foundation for climate action centered on universal human dignity and protection.