Introduction

Ecological constitutionalism seeks to internalise the irreducible ecological prerequisites of human society in the highest form of domestic law: constitutions. This chapter provides a brief summary of the failures of conventional environmental law, the current state of the global environment and the context of the Anthropocene as a compelling driver for new paradigms of environmental law and governance. It then examines rights-based approaches to environmental protection as one significant response to global environmental harms and describes the rapid expansion of constitutional environmental rights since 1972 and the birth of “environmental constitutionalism” as a field of study and practice. Next, it introduces the “ecological law” movement as another major evolution of environmental law and sets out the basic principles and implications of ecological law theory. Finally, the chapter concludes by mapping out the remainder of the volume, with an outline of structure and content and a summary of the main arguments.