Towards ‘the environmental state’: revelations from a design-oriented enquiry of environmental constitutionalism

Abstract

Political theorists of varied philosophical traditions and ideological leanings have provided different understandings of the state. In the same vein, an ‘environmental’ conception of the state has emerged which seeks to cast the state as an ecological steward. In the legal context, the rise of the environmental state is evidenced by the trend of constitutionalization of the environment. Constitutionalization of the environment or environmental constitutionalism is an approach that relies on constitutions to provide for the architecture of environmental governance through various constitutional features, such as fundamental rights, principles of environmental governance, and endearing aspirational values. This relationship between the environmental state and environmental constitutionalism, however, remains less explored in the legal scholarship, particularly in the specialized sub-domain of the environmental constitutionalism scholarship. This article fills that gap by arguing that environmental constitutionalism is not only an important indicator of the rise of the environmental state, but also a progressive step towards it.