The Global Emergence of Constitutional Environmental Rights

Over the past forty years, countries throughout the world have adopted human rights related to environmental governance, protection. Interestingly, these countries vary widely in terms of geography, government, history, resources, tradition, and wealth. This raises the question: What accounts for the global expansion of constitutional environmental rights in light of major national differences? Bringing together theory from law, political science, and sociology, a global statistical analysis, and a comparative study of constitutional design in South Asia, Josh Gellers presents a comprehensive response to this important question. Moving beyond normative debates and anecdotal developments in case law, as well as comprehensive efforts to describe and categorize such rights around the world, the book provides a systematic analysis of the expansion of environmental rights using social science methods and theory. The resulting theoretical framework and empirical evidence offer new insights into how domestic and international factors interact during the constitution drafting process to produce new law that is both locally relevant and globally resonant. Scholars, practitioners, and students of law, political science, and sociology interested in understanding how institutions cope with complex problems like environmental degradation and human rights violations will find this book essential reading.