The Constitutional Right to Save the Environment

More than 50 years ago, Franklin Kury drafted and championed an Environmental Rights Amendment to the Pennsylvania Constitution. His book, The Constitutional Question to Save the Planet: The Right to a Healthy Environment (ELI Press 2021), expands upon the story of his amendment to demonstrate how its principles can be the basis for addressing climate change in the rest of the world. On October 13, 2021, the Environmental Law Institute hosted Kury and leading experts (Franklin Kury, John Dernbach, Julia Olson, and Barry Hill) to explore the impact environmental rights amendments can have on stabilizing the climate system through legal channels at the state and federal levels. This is an edited transcript of that discussion.

Keywords: Article I, Section 27; Environmental Rights Amendment; Pennsylvania Constitution; environmental law; environmental rights; state constitutional law; public trust doctrine; constitutional environmental law; sustainable development; environmental rights; climate change; human rights

JEL Classification: K00, K19, K32

Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation

Kury, Sen. Franklin L. and Dernbach, John C. and Olson, Julia and Hill, Barry E., The Constitutional Right to Save the Environment (January 5, 2022). Environmental Law Reporter, Vol. 52, No. 1, 2022, Widener Law Commonwealth Research Paper No. 22-01 , Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4001904