Constitutional Responses To Climate Change- A Comparative Study Of Environmental Rights And Judicial Approaches In India, The USA, And Germany
- IJLLR Journal
- 16 minutes ago
- 1 min read
Shivani Selvakumar, LL.M., Gujarat National Law University, Gandhinagar.
ABSTRACT
Climate Change has started as an environmental problem, which now creates a major threat to human rights because it endangers human existence and health, livelihood, and intergenerational equity. While international agreements such as the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the Kyoto Protocol, and the Paris Agreement set global obligations, yet their efficacy ultimately depends on how nations incorporate these agreements into their national legal frameworks. Accordingly, this study examines how national constitutions function as instruments that transform international climate commitments into national laws with enforceable legal rights and duties. This research paper undertakes a comparative study of constitutional methods that India, Germany, and the United States utilize to fight climate change through their environmental protection systems, including constitutional provisions, judicial interpretation, and institutional frameworks that shape environmental protection. India represents a rights- based constitutional model in which environmental protection has been incorporated into fundamental rights through judicial interpretation; Germany, in contrast, operates through a duty-based system that derives authority from written constitutional provisions; while the United States follows an independent statutory framework that operates differently from the other two countries. Through the comparison, the study concludes that effective constitutional responses to climate change require a balance between enforceable rights, institutional accountability, and democratic legitimacy, with particular emphasis on safeguarding the interests of future generations.
Keywords: climate change, intergenerational equity, International agreements, judicial interpretations, constitutional responses.
