Making Sense of Environmental Human Rights and Global Environmental Constitutionalism

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. This chapter explains how a human right to a healthy environment emerged and, ultimately, encouraged and converged with global environmental constitutionalism, and explores the extent to which environmental rights are being implemented and are improving environmental and human health outcomes. Global environmental constitutionalism involves much more than whether to recognise a right to a healthy environment. 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. Human rights–based thinking about the environment emerged nonetheless, and has enjoyed increasing prominence at the table of human rights.