本文採取了「科技與社會」（Science, Technology and Society）研究中「自我指涉機制」（self-referring）的理論，來分析美國法院的首宗環境正義經典判決Bean案。研究發現，法院對環境正義的看法，構成了典型的自我指涉機制。這個機制有時甚至成了一種「正義—科學」間的循環論證（circular definitions）。具體來說，在環境正義的自我指涉機制之下，法院嘗試將判斷的基準與環境（不）正義的研究相連結。其原因在於，垃圾場的分布無法單憑直觀來認定，因此法院轉而憑藉相關研究所提供的科學證據來做判斷。而這些研究之所以被認為是與環境正義有關的，則又是出於涉入其中的各方行動者，都堅信相關研究確可偵測出社會中的正義或不義使然。本文指出，當法院與一般大眾都恪守這種自我指涉機制時，便可能限縮吾人對環境不正義的思考範圍，並導致後續相關政策也受到侷限。

This article adopts a Barnesian self-referential approach to analyzing the first environmental justice (EJ) lawsuit, Bean v. Southwestern Waste Management, Corp.(Bean). According to Barry Barnes, a society could be understood as a self-referring knowledge system and this system is made valid only because the knowledge carriers within it has shared some common knowledge. That means, a society is everything its members know about it, make reference to each other, and act in ways which (re-) confirm their original ＂knowing＂. For example, a ＂leader＂ is a leader only to the extent that one's followers regard him/her as such, and treat him/her accordingly. In this article, I argue that a similar self-referential nature can be found in Bean as well. That is, in coming to believe that Bean is somehow EJrelated, all Bean's social actors constitute the very context that makes Bean an EJ case. Seen from this angle, EJ loses its static connotations that it tends to have when conceived solely as a regime, and shows that it is itself socially constructed. If this analysis is correct, then EJ is nothing but how Bean's plaintiffs, defendants, lawyers, judges, and other social actors know about, believe in, and act on what it is. Since we are ourselves the context which makes EJ what it is, EJ is how we understand, treat, regard and measure it.