Kotze, Louis J. --- "A global environmental constitution for the Anthropocenes climate crisis" [2019] ELECD 2841; in Jaria-Manzano, Jordi; Borras , Susana (eds), "Research Handbook on Global Climate Constitutionalism" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2019) 50

Book Title: Research Handbook on Global Climate Constitutionalism

Editor(s): Jaria-Manzano, Jordi; Borrás , Susana

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

Section: Chapter 4

Section Title: A global environmental constitution for the Anthropocenes climate crisis

Author(s): Kotzé, Louis J.

Number of pages: 25

Abstract/Description:

The far-reaching socio-ecological disruptions that characterize the Anthropocene are clearly evident in the context of climate change: a socio-ecological disaster that poses an existential threat to the entire living order. In order to confront head on the Anthropocene’s climate crisis, radical reforms of the global political, economic, social and juridical architecture are urgently required. One possibility through which to creatively accomplish such radical regulatory reforms in an innovative but at the same time familiar way could lie in the global environmental constitutionalism paradigm. This chapter endeavours to answer the following question: what is the potential worth of addressing the Anthropocene’s climate change crisis through a global environmental constitution, and which existing international environmental law instrument could fulfil the role of a substantive global environmental constitution in the present time of climate crisis? The discussion commences with a brief reflection on some of the juridical dimensions of the Anthropocene’s climate crisis, while also outlining why a global environmental constitutional approach could be useful for addressing this crisis. The next part analyses four potential candidates that could serve as a global environmental constitution for the Anthropocene’s climate crisis. These include the World Charter for Nature of 1982; the Earth Charter of 2000; the World Conservation Union Draft Covenant of 2010; and the recent Global Pact for the Environment of 2017. The remainder of the chapter then critically evaluates the potential of each of these instruments to be or to become a global environmental constitution, either in their present or possibly an amended form.