from Part III - Beyond the European Convention
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 27 August 2021
The chapter discusses the constitutional protections of the environment in two comparatively sophisticated domestic protection regimes. South Africa and Germany represent two broad trends that go beyond the greener interpreation of existing rights through courts. Both have adopted express environmental provisions into their constitutional frameworks: South Africa codified an enforceable, individual right to an environment of a certain quality and Germany introduced a general constitutional mission statement requiring environmental protection and sustainable development. However, as the case studies demonstrate, both approaches have been limited in their practical impact: key conceptual and doctrinal questions remain unresolved and failed to significantly impact environmental regulations. In South Africa, the environmental minimum could contribute towards the development of a principled doctrine on section 24 and clarify its relationship to environmental framework legislation. With respect to Germany, the chief contribution lies in limiting the deference granted to regulators and stimulating the development of clearer positive obligations under fundamental rights.
To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.