Environmental Justice and Natural Resource Exploitation in Developing Countries: Legal Challenges, Prospects for Sustainable Development

Natural resources constitute an important foundation for economic development in many developing countries. However, the extraction and exploitation of minerals and other natural resources frequently generate significant environmental and social costs, which has made environmental justice an increasingly important concept in natural-resource governance. This   review examines the relationship between environmental justice and natural-resource exploitation in developing countries, with particular attention to environmental law, human rights, community participation, resource governance, and sustainable development. The paper reviews the principles of distributive, procedural, recognition, and intergenerational justice and examines their application to mining and critical-mineral exploitation. The review finds that although international and national environmental laws increasingly recognize principles capable of supporting environmental justice, implementation remains constrained by weak institutions, inadequate enforcement, limited community participation, corruption, insufficient environmental monitoring, and unequal bargaining power. The paper recommends stronger environmental regulation, meaningful community participation, transparent resource governance, effective environmental liability mechanisms, equitable benefit sharing, independent monitoring, and improved institutional capacity. Achieving sustainable development requires natural-resource governance frameworks that integrate environmental protection, economic development, human rights, and social justice.