In recent years, we observe a growing concern with equity in international environmental politics among (developing country) policy makers, NGO activists and academics. However, scholarly research interest in the just distribution of costs and benefits from environmental measures remains largely theoretical: It focuses predominantly on the question which normative principles of distributive justice should apply to international environmental politics. In contrast to this lively and controversial debate, there is a striking lack of empirical research. We do not yet know much about the degree to which environmental regimes really live up to demanding requirements of justice – in particular with regard to environmental problem areas beyond climate change. This gap is addressed in this paper which develops and applies an analytical framework for empirical environmental justice assessments. The framework builds upon the globalisation of Rawls’s Theory of Justice as suggested by philosophers such as Beitz, Pogge, and Moellendorf but modifies it so as to make it applicable to the specific challenges of biodiversity politics. The international biodiversity regime serves as a case study because it faces a double challenge with regard to distributive justice: On the one hand the majority of worldwide biodiversity is concentrated in the poor developing countries so that the costs of conservation largely incur there. On the other hand, almost exclusively the rich industrialised countries have the means to develop new products and patents from biological resources so that they obtain most of the benefits from biological diversity. Among the objectives of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) are the “sustainable use” of biodiversity and the “fair and equitable sharing” of its benefits. Drawing on the example of a CBD benefit sharing trust from India the paper analyses in how far the institutional solutions provided by the international biodiversity regime contribute to global distributive justice.
