The world is losing its resources, increasing the chances of exacerbating existing conflicts and sparking new ones. Yet there are ways that we can help ensure that these conflicts do not lead to violence.
Globally, there are already water shortages, biodiversity is declining at an unprecedented pace and farmland is increasingly infertile. These losses have, and will continue, to fuel tensions and social upheaval.
Over the past 60 years, 40 percent of internal wars can be associated with natural resources; since 1990, there have been at least 18 violent conflicts fueled or financed by natural resources.
In the worst affected parts of the world, environmental refugees are forced to travel to areas that barely support the population already there, creating a vicious cycle of conflict.
In such situations, an often-overlooked key is the lack of local, just and practical institutions that can navigate ethnically complex societies and mediate toward solutions.
This combination of resource loss and a lack of peaceful-resolution methods is repeated frequently across the globe. Disputes over all types of resources -- from water and oil to timber and diamonds -- have contributed to conflicts as diverse in impact and scope as those found in Brazil, Liberia and Iraq.
Yet conflicts over resources do not have to lead to violence. Strong institutions, based on a global idea of justice, can allow us to negotiate our changing world.
A just outlook would recognize that in many cases it is the communities who have done the least to deplete resources that are the most affected by the shortages.
And that idea is gaining momentum. The idea of justice is currently being expanded to ensure that communities affected by pollution or water shortage can use local, national and international avenues to protect themselves.
The 16th Sustainable Development Goal attempts to ensure access to justice for all: to build inclusive societies by building inclusive institutions. It directly links access to justice to peace and sustainable development. Such institutions can strive to ensure that environmental justice is a normal part of the legal systems across the world.
A majority of countries have started to reinvent themselves by placing environmental justice at the heart of their value system. One hundred seventy-seven countries have already mainstreamed the concept by explicitly placing the right of humans to a healthy environment in their constitutions.
As recently as 2012, the world's Supreme Court justices met at the request of the United Nations Environment Programme to discuss how to ensure that environmental law can be enforced through legal institutions.
In Buenos Aires, where the constitution protects the right to a healthy environment, the Supreme Court was able to cut through the layers of responsibility and give legal authority to the calls for a cleanup of the city's river that were coming from the poorest sections of the city. Thousands of tons of refuse have already been removed as a result.
When those in conflict have well-established, trustworthy mechanisms with which to mediate and achieve a solution, disputes over resources can result in peaceful social change and a deepening of democracy and development.
Strong institutions, based on the idea of a fairly agreed peace, can also reach beyond the planet's current inhabitants to give protection to those of future generations. This idea of intergenerational justice is key to the lasting success of environmental-justice tools.
For example, as Palau's corals and marine biodiversity were increasingly threatened, they decided to protect not only the current generation's treasures, but the resources of their future generations by creating a Protected Area Network for the country's marine biodiversity, reinforced by a strong legal framework.
To borrow from one of my favorite fellow American's words: it is not possible to be in favor of justice for some people and not be in favor of justice for all people.
By accepting this challenge, and seeking a justice for all, we can not only be good, but be a part of great things.
We can be remembered as the ones that from the edge of possible failure created a permanent success.
This post is part of a series produced by The Huffington Post, "What's Working: Sustainable Development Goals," in conjunction with the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The proposed set of milestones will be the subject of discussion at the UN General Assembly meeting on Sept. 25-27, 2015 in New York. The goals, which will replace the UN's Millennium Development Goals (2000-2015), cover 17 key areas of development -- including poverty, hunger, health, education, and gender equality, among many others. As part of The Huffington Post's commitment to solutions-oriented journalism, this What's Working SDG blog series will focus on one goal every weekday in September. This post addresses Goal 16.