Description
Book SynopsisDavid Boyd shows that recognition of the right to a healthy environment is not only growing, it is having a profound influence on public policy and environmental protection.
Trade ReviewWhat sets this book evidently apart from all the existing publications in the field is its empirical approach…in an earlier endorsement for this book’s marketing, I declared that it ‘breaks new ground in terms of approach, content, scope, and methodology and is well worth a place on the bookshelves of anyone who takes environmental rights and governance seriously’. After this recent reassessment of the book, I can only reiterate these sentiments.
-- Louis J Kotzé, Professor, North-West University, South Africa * Journal of Human Rights and the Environment, Vol. 4 No. 1 *
Boyd’s book forms an indispensable and influential addition to this literature not only due to the strength and comprehensiveness of its comparative legal analysis, but also because of the important empirical questions it seeks to answer as well as raises for future research. Indeed, by conducting the first serious and systematic empirical study of the environmental implications of the right to a healthy environment, Boyd has moved this field beyond the speculative and abstract arguments typical of earlier scholarship...Boyd’s meticulous examination of the legal status of the right to a healthy environment in close to a hundred countries provides powerful evidence of its salience to legal systemsaround the world...The Environmental Rights Revolution forms an important, pioneering effort for understanding the legal influence and broader significance of the right to a healthy environment. As a result, the variety of empirical puzzles and questions that it leaves in its wake should continue to influence research in this field for many years to come.
-- Sebastien Jodoin * McGill International Journal of Sustainable Development Law and Policy, Volume 8: Issue 1 *
Table of ContentsPart 1: The Emergence and Evolution of a New Human Right
1 Constitutions, Human Rights, and the Environment: The Context
2 The Right to a Healthy Environment: Framing the Issues
3 The Prevalence and Enforceability of Environmental Provisions in National Constitutions
4 The Influence of International Law
Part 2: The Constitutional Right to a Healthy Environment in Practice
5 A Framework for Assessing the Legal Influence of the Right to a Healthy Environment
6 Latin America and the Caribbean
7 Africa
8 Asia
9 Eastern Europe
10 Western Europe
Part 3: Evaluating the Impacts of Environmental Provisions in Constitutions
11 Lessons Learned: Practical Experiences with the Right to a Healthy Environment
12 Do Environmental Provisions in Constitutions Influence Environmental Performance?
13 An Idea Whose Time Has Come
Appendices
Appendix 1. Research Methods
Appendix 2. Online Database: All Current Environmental Provisions from National Constitutions
Notes
References
Index
