Abstract
Environmental degradation is one of the most unrelenting issues confronting the planet today. A nation’s Constitution has a crucial role to play in response to environmental problems like pollution, biodiversity loss, global warming, and climate change. The Constitution, the supreme law of a nation, mirrors a nation’s soul, reflecting and upholding the community’s most profound and most treasured ideals. Thus, constitutional recognition of environmental rights is imperative. The author argues that many nations lack explicit constitutional provisions guaranteeing a fundamental right to a healthy environment and imposing a duty on both citizens and the state to conserve the environment and ensure the implementation of such environmental provisions. In this article, the author advocates for constitutional recognition of environmental provisions and emphasises that the constitutional recognition of environmental rights provides a recourse for enforcing and implementing such provisions, thereby ensuring environmental protection.
The article acquaints the reader with the environmental provisions enshrined in the Constitution of India on environmental protection and the promotion of a clean and healthy environment. The Supreme Court of India has espoused a pragmatic and proactive approach in interpreting constitutional environmental provisions, evincing immense solicitude and sensitivity towards environmental concerns. The pivotal role of the judiciary in shaping the environmental law of India and in advancing environmental jurisprudence has been highlighted. The article elucidates the concept of environmental constitutionalism and underscores the significance of environmental rights and duties of the State and the individuals globally in addressing environmental crises. The article further explores the influence of international environmental law on environmental policies and constitutional frameworks worldwide.
The article presents a comparative analysis of the constitutional provisions and the environmental policy of India, the UK, and the USA. It reviews the scope within which environmental rights are presently protected under the Constitutions of India, the UK, and the USA and explicates their enforceability. Emphasising the impact of environmental rights in safeguarding both our planet and humanity, the role of higher courts of these nations in interpreting constitutional environmental provisions and mitigating environmental issues has been illuminated. Furthermore, the author provides insights into systems established by the Constitutions of the three countries, shedding light on the broader landscape of environmental governance and legal frameworks.
Keywords: environmental rights, constitutional recognition, comparative analysis, environmental concerns, international environmental law
Introduction
In the words of Albert Einstein, “The environment is everything that isn’t me.” In this sense, the environment signifies virtually anything and everything in our surroundings and is the key to the existence of life on Earth. Keeping this in view, man must endeavour to protect and preserve the environment. In stark contrast, man is in conflict with the environment because of his ravenous need for resources and his ambition to dominate nature. Environmental pollution is a problem that predates the mod. Man has reduced nature’s capacity for self-stabilisation by recklessly and brazenly exploiting its resources out of a desire for boundless pleasure and comfort. Most of the developmental endeavours of man have caused a death blow to the environment, slowly but steadily.
Constitutions of more than 100 nations recognise the right to live in a healthy and sustainable environment.[1] However, there is no internationally recognised enforceable right to a healthy environment. Environmental rights refer to “any proclamation of a human right to environmental conditions of a specified quality.”[2]In response to environmental problems like pollution, biodiversity loss, global warming, climate change, etc., Constitution have a vital role to play. About 88 nations have a constitutional right to a healthy environment, while 65 nations have incorporated environmental protection in their constitutions.[3] The constitutional recognition of environmental rights in India is an outcome of the synergy of the evolving nature of the Constitution of India and the proactive stance of the judiciary, shaping the environmental jurisprudence of India.[4]
Most nations have legal frameworks delineating environmental rights that envisage conservation of the environment. Nevertheless, several nations do not have explicit constitutional environmental provisions guaranteeing a fundamental right to a healthy environment or imposing a duty on the citizens or the State machinery to conserve the environment and ensuring the implementation of such environmental provisions. Environmental rights serve as a powerful weapon in the fight for the protection of the environment and humans. Constitutional recognition of environmental provisions provides a recourse for enforcement and implementation of such provisions and thus ensures environmental protection and conservation.
[1] UN Environment Programme, ‘What are your environmental rights?’<https://www.unep.org/explore-topics/environmental-rights-and-governance/what-we-do/advancing-environmental-rights/what-0> accessed 10 March 2024.
[2] UN Environment Programme, ‘What are environment rights?’https://www.unep.org/explore-topics/environmental-rights-and-governance/what-we-do/advancing-environmental-rights/what accessed 10 March 2024.
[3] UN Environment Programme, ‘Dramatic growth in laws to protect environment, but widespread failure to enforce, finds report’ (UNEP, 24 January 2019) <https://www.unep.org/news-and-stories/press-release/dramatic-growth-laws-protect-environment-widespread-failure-enforce#:~:text=The%20report%20details%20the%20many,environmental%20protection%20in%20their%20constitutions> accessed 10 March 2024.
[4] Normawati Binti Hashim, ‘Constitutional Recognition of Right to Healthy Environment: The Way Forward’ (2013) 105 Procedia Soc Behav Sci <https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1877042813043966?ref=pdf_download&fr=RR-2&rr=76147bccbe5d5297> accessed 10 March 2024.