A Practice in Search of a Theory: From the Constitutionalisation of the Environment to Environmental Constitutionalism

Dr Domenico Amirante, Professor, University of Compania Luigi Vanvitelli (Italy) & Dr Pasquale Viola, Research Fellow, Charles University (Czech Republic)

Note: Internal event not open to external attendees.

The increasing attention towards environmental concerns over the last decades has produced a substantial growth in the number of democratic constitutions providing environmental rules and principles. Globally, out of the 193 constitutions of the current member States to the UN, 156 contain explicit references to the environment. Especially in recent years the evolution of environmental constitutionalism has gained momentum, marking an upward trajectory: environmental protection has nowadays reached a central position in the world’s constitutional systems, with more stringent and, above all, structural forms of protection that allow us to affirm that the constitutional commitment towards environment represents an archetype of our times and not just the “constitutionalisation of an in-vogue topic”. Our talk addresses the “ascent” of the environment as a constitutional matter worthy of association with social values, in the light of the different but converging provisions already included within the texts and the dynamic approach that legal systems and public governance are undertaking to accommodate such a legal “new-comer”.

Dr Domenico Amirante is Full Professor in Comparative Law and Director of the PhD Course in Comparative Law and Processes of Integration at the University of Campania Luigi Vanvitelli (Italy). His research interests concern comparative constitutional law (with a specific focus on Asia), multiculturalism, and environmental law. Among his latest publications:  Del Estado de derecho ambiental al Estado del Antropoceno: una mirada a la historia del constitucionalismo medioambiental (2020); The Global Pact for the Environment: a General Instrument to Face Climate Change (2019); La democrazia dei superlativi. Il sistema costituzionale dell’India contemporanea (2019); Managing Language in Multicultural Societies: Learning from the Indian Experience (2018); The Right to Environment in Emerging Economies: an India-China Comparison (2015).

Pasquale Viola is Post-Doctoral Researcher at the Charles University in Prague and PhD in Comparative Law and Processes of Integration. His research fields regard climate change policies and legislation, environmental law, comparative constitutional law. He has been invited as lecturer and speaker at several international symposiums and has been visiting researcher in Asian and European academic institutions. He has been member of the Ethics Specialist Group and Climate Change Specialist Group of the International Union for Conservation of Nature. Among his latest publications: “Adaptive” legal systems for the adaptation to climate change? Legal pathways between environmental and climate change law (2021); La protección constitucional de las minorías y la influencia de elementos de diferenciación social sobre la organización estatal. Una mirada a algunos ejemplos relevantes de Asia y América Latina (2020); Costituzionalismo autoctono (2020); La contribución científica del Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change al Pacto Verde Europeo: introducción a la European Climate Law(2020), The growing role of expert members in environmental adjudication: the case of the Indian National Green Tribunal (with Domenico Amirante, 2017).

Event Recording

Loading the player...