A UK cider-drinker who suffered memory problems from the lead glaze of a pub s mug, was awarded 55,000 compensation. But eight thousand victims of the Chisso mercury poisoning at Minamata Bay waited forty years for 16,000 each - most were in their seventies by then. Those who already have an intellectual disability are ignored. The child with one arm who loses another because of a landmine is seen clearly as a victim. The child with Down s Syndrome who has the disability compounded through pollution from a lead smelter is not.
Special laws are unworkable or absurd.
Some laws reduce the rights of environmental victims - the US Radiation Exposure Compensation Act and the Bhopal legislation deny justice for future generations by preventing compensation claims. This law has never been used in relation to environmental exposure. The human brain reached its current favourable state because of positive interaction with its environment over millions of years. But this has changed - EMID could eventually cause regressive brain evolution. The mechanism could be genetic or a natural selection trade-off .