ABSTRACT
The recognition of environmental rights as the ancestor and prerequisite to all other human rights has now taken hold in the legal consciousness of governments, courts and civil society around the world. Indeed, recent decades have seen a rapid global expansion of rights-based approaches to environmental protection in domestic constitutional law. This chapter will consider how human rights are both affirmed and constrained by ecological constitutionalism, drawing on Boyd’s ground-breaking empirical work in this area. It will briefly canvas the “rights debate”, concluding that despite any limitations in rights-based approaches, environmental human rights form a crucial component of ecological constitutionalism in the current historical moment. It will consider in particular: an ecologically literate reading of existing rights (the right to life, health, etc.); the human right to a safe, clean, healthy and sustainable environment; and Indigenous rights, as positive rights created/recognised by ecological constitutions. Finally, it will examine how an ecological constitution might limit private property rights (whether personal or corporate) by reference to ecological imperatives.
