Constitutional Environmental Rights

A 'Snowball Effect' to Counter Climate Change

Abstract

Constitutional environmental rights provisions may be utilised to mitigate climate impacts either directly through climate litigation or indirectly through other types of environmental rights claims. Much of the focus in recent literature has been on climate litigation, so this article focuses on the climate mitigation prospects of the latter (i.e. non-climate cases). Examples from resource extraction, a major contributor to climate change, are used to demonstrate how this occurs through a discrete, case-by-case or project-by-project approach to address environmental harm from activities that contribute to climate change. The extent to which resource-producing nations have constitutionally entrenched environmental rights protection reveals new avenues for addressing climate change that may expand current understandings of the legal strategies that are available to public interest litigants. As this human rights-based approach gains momentum around the world, it has the potential to have a ‘snowball effect’ on a global scale that may complement other climate mitigation strategies.