Author: James R. May Publisher: ISBN: Category : Languages : en Pages : 16
Book Description
Abstract: The field of human rights engages rights that are thought to inhere to humanness, commonly categorised as either civil and political or social, economic and cultural. Civil and political rights include the right to vote, assemble and participate, as well as to free speech, religion and legal processes. Socioeconomic and cultural rights include dignity, education, health, food, water, sick leave, family leave, and employment, to name a few. A healthy environment occupies the liminality between. But until fairly recently, the human rights oeuvre largely avoided the question as to whether humans are entitled to a healthy environment. 'Global Enviromental Constitutionalism' has changed that. It explores the constitutional engagement, incorporation, adjudication and implementation of environmental rights, duties, responsibilities, procedures, policies and other measures that promote the twin aims of environmental protection and a right to a healthy environment. The constitutions of at least 84 countries now expressly recognise something akin to a right to a healthy environment. Courts in several additional countries have inferred a right to a healthy environment from other established rights, largely to life, dignity or health.Global environmental constitutionalism involves much more than whether to recognise a right to a healthy environment. Scores of countries have also amended or adopted constitutions to grant rights to information, participation, justice, water, sustainable development and a safe climate; to recognise rights of current and future generations, pndigenous peoples, and of nature; to impose (sometimes reciprocal) duties to protect the environment and the climate and engage in environmental assessment; and to promote myriad environmental policies, including sustainability. Environmental constitutionalism shows growth in the areas of climate litigation, rights of nature, procedural rights, application of human dignity under law, water law and sustainability.The task at hand is to explain how a human right to a healthy environment emerged and, ultimately, encouraged and converged with global environmental constitutionalism, and, to explore the extent to which environmental rights are being implemented and are improving environmental and human health outcomes.
Author: James R. May Publisher: Cambridge University Press ISBN: 1107022258 Category : Business & Economics Languages : en Pages : 427
Book Description
Reflecting a global trend, scores of countries have affirmed that their citizens are entitled to healthy air, water, and land and that their constitution should guarantee certain environmental rights. This book examines the increasing recognition that the environment is a proper subject for protection in constitutional texts and for vindication by constitutional courts. This phenomenon, which the authors call environmental constitutionalism, represents the confluence of constitutional law, international law, human rights, and environmental law. National apex and constitutional courts are exhibiting a growing interest in environmental rights, and as courts become more aware of what their peers are doing, this momentum is likely to increase. This book explains why such provisions came into being, how they are expressed, and the extent to which they have been, and might be, enforced judicially. It is a singular resource for evaluating the content of and hope for constitutional environmental rights.
Author: Erin Daly Publisher: Cambridge University Press ISBN: 1316730875 Category : Law Languages : en Pages : 254
Book Description
Constitutions can play a central role in responding to environmental challenges, such as pollution, biodiversity loss, lack of drinking water, and climate change. The vast majority of people on earth live under constitutional systems that protect the environment or recognize environmental rights. Such environmental constitutionalism, however, falls short without effective implementation by policymakers, advocates and jurists. Implementing Environmental Constitutionalism: Current Global Challenges explains and explores this 'implementation gap'. This collection is both broad and deep. While some of the essays analyze crosscutting themes, such as climate change and the need for rule of law that affect the implementation of environmental constitutionalism throughout the world, others delve deeply into geographically contextual experiences for lessons about how constitutional environmental law might be more effectively implemented. This volume informs global conversations about whether and how environmental constitutionalism can be made more effective to protect the natural environment.
Book Description
There is persuasive evidence suggesting we are on the brink of human-induced ecological disaster that could change life on Earth as we know it. There is also a general consensus among scientists about the pace and extent of global ecological decay, including a realisation that humans are central to causing the global socio-ecological crisis. This new epoch has been called the Anthropocene. Considering the many benefits that constitutional environmental protection holds out in domestic legal orders, it is likely that a constitutionalised form of global environmental law and governance would be better able to counter the myriad exigencies of the Anthropocene. This book seeks to answer this central question: from the perspective of the Anthropocene, what is environmental constitutionalism and how could it be extrapolated to formulate a global framework? In answering this question, this book offers the first systematic conceptual framework for global environmental constitutionalism in the epoch of the Anthropocene.
Author: Tim Hayward Publisher: OUP Oxford ISBN: 0191535311 Category : Political Science Languages : en Pages : 248
Book Description
This book shows why a fundamental right to an adequate environment ought to be provided in the constitution of any modern democratic state. The importance of securing provision for environmental protection at the constitutional level is now widely recognized. Globally, more than 100 states make some form of provision for environmental protection in their constitutions. A question more hotly debated, though, is whether the provision should take the stringent form of a fundamental right. This book is the first to examine the question from the perspective of political theory. It explains why the right to an environment adequate for one's health and well-being is a genuine human right, and why it ought to be constitutionalized. It carefully elaborates this case and defends it in closely argued responses to critical challenges. It thus shows why there is no insurmountable obstacle to the effective implementation of this constitutional right, and why constitutionalizing this right is not democratically illegitimate. With particular reference to European Union member states, it explains what this right adds to states' existing human rights and environmental commitments. It concludes by showing how constitutional environmental rights can serve to promote the cause of environmental justice in a global context. The book provides illustrations from around the world of how human rights and environmental concerns have been linked to date, and highlights precedents for the future development of a fundamental right to an adequate environment. It will be of value to policy-makers, lawyers, campaigners, and citizens concerned with environmental protection as a public interest and fundamental right. It will provide a valuable resource for students and teachers in politics, philosophy, law, environmental studies, and social sciences more generally. The book makes an original contribution to normative political theory by rethinking rights and justice in the light of contemporary issues and contexts.
Author: David R. Boyd Publisher: UBC Press ISBN: 0774821639 Category : Law Languages : en Pages : 470
Book Description
The right to a healthy environment has been the subject of extensive philosophical debates that revolve around the question: Should rights to clean air, water, and soil be entrenched in law? David Boyd answers this by moving beyond theoretical debates to measure the practical effects of enshrining the right in constitutions. His pioneering analysis of 193 constitutions and the laws and court decisions of more than 100 nations in Europe, Latin America, Asia, and Africa reveals a positive correlation between constitutional protection and stronger environmental laws, smaller ecological footprints, superior environmental performance, and improved quality of life.
Author: Anna Grear Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing ISBN: 1782544437 Category : Law Languages : en Pages : 581
Book Description
Bringing together leading international scholars in the field, this Research Handbook interrogates, from various angles and positions, the fractious relationship between human rights and the environment and between human rights and environmental law.
Author: Melanie Murcott Publisher: BRILL ISBN: 9004509402 Category : Law Languages : en Pages : 270
Book Description
In Transformative Environmental Constitutionalism, Professor Melanie Jean Murcott writes from a Global South perspective, drawing on South African context to provide a transformative theoretical framework for adjudication of environmental law disputes which could be more responsive to social, environmental, and climate injustices.
Author: Lynda Collins Publisher: Routledge ISBN: 1000418316 Category : Law Languages : en Pages : 114
Book Description
The Ecological Constitution integrates the insights of environmental constitutionalism and ecological law in a concise, engaging and accessible manner. This book sets out the necessary components of any constitution that could be considered "ecological" in nature. In particular, it argues that an ecological constitution is one that codifies the following key principles, at a minimum: the principle of sustainability; intergenerational equity and the public trust doctrine; environmental human rights; rights of nature; the precautionary principle and non-regression; and rights and obligations relating to a healthy climate. In the context of the global environmental crisis that characterises the current Anthropocene era, these principles are important tools for changing consciousness and driving pragmatic policy reforms around the world. Re-imagining constitutions along these lines could play a vital role in the collective project of building a sustainable future for humans, animals, ecosystems and the biosphere we all share. This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of environmental law, ecological law, environmental constitutionalism, sustainability and rights of nature.
Author: James R. May
Author: James R. May
Author: Erin Daly
Author: Louis J Kotzé
Author: Tim Hayward
Author: David R. Boyd
Author: Anna Grear
Author: John H. Knox
Author: Melanie Murcott
Author: Lynda Collins