Global Environmental Constitutionalism: Getting There from Here
Transnational Environmental Law, Forthcoming
14 Pages Posted: 9 Feb 2012 Last revised: 14 Aug 2013
Date Written: February 9, 2012
Abstract
This essay, which will appear in the inaugural issue of a new journal 'Transnational Environmental Law,' considers the possibility of global environmental constitutionalism. It argues that dominant analytical approaches to environmental law exhibit a similar, problematic form: They treat that which should be outcome determining as, instead, outcome determined. This form is most evident and influential in the welfare economic technique of regulatory cost-benefit analysis, which treats all resources – including the monetary value of human lives – as potential means toward seemingly higher-yielding ends. In contrast, an environmental constitutionalism, in which certain needs and interests of present and future generations, the global community, and other forms of life are given foundational legal importance, would help restore conceptual coherence and normative priority to the subjects of environmental law.
Keywords: Environmental constitutionalism, precautionary principle, cost-benefit analysis
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation