Constitutional Environmental Human Rights: A Descriptive Analysis of 142 National Constitutions

This paper provides a detailed keyword analysis of the 142 out of 198 national constitutions that include at least one reference to the environment as of 2010. Out of these 142 constitutions, 125 contain provisions that are explicitly related to environmental human rights, and ten include a direct human right to water. Focusing mostly on the language of the provisions and the age of the constitutions (not the age of the provision itself), the analysis provides insight into the extent to which countries are taking environmental human rights seriously. The findings note that constitutions that reference the environment are, on average, generally younger in age than those that do not. This is also the case for developing versus developed countries, and Non-OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) versus OECD member countries. Constitutions that have a direct human right to water are, on average, even younger. The paper also develops a simple index of the legal strength of constitutional environmental human rights provisions and offers the data as an alternative, positive (versus subjective) specification to a similar set of data compiled by the Toronto Initiative for Economic and Social Rights (TIESR).