Constitutional Environmental Rights and Liabilities
Environmental Liability, Vol. 3, p. 75, 2012
13 Pages Posted: 22 Feb 2013
Date Written: 2012
Abstract
This article surveys the types of remedies courts have developed in the environmental cases where they have found liability for violation of constitutional rights. Part I explores liabilities and state obligations under the international legal framework and Part II examines the range of remedies that courts have used. Despite the challenges, courts have been extraordinarily creative in designing remedies that are ambitious enough to be effective in remedying the environmental damage, yet defined and limited enough that defendants can implement them. Still, defendants – both official and private – can be recalcitrant, and we consider in the second part of this article the challenges that courts face in enforcing the remedies they have ordered. Although the cases span the globe, the majority of cases in which the courts are so heavily engaged that their remedial orders go beyond the typical are from the Philippines, a few countries in Latin America, and the Indian subcontinent, including Bangladesh and Nepal.
Keywords: environmental law, constitutional law, constitutions, constitutional rights
JEL Classification: K32
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation