Environmental Law and Human Rights: Interpreting the Right to a Healthy Environment in Pakistan’s Constitutional Framework

Abstract

The right to healthy environment has become a crucial aspect of the contemporary human rights discourse that ties the environmental stewardship with such unalienable human rights like right to live, dignity, human health, and access to natural resources. This essay gives a critical review of the granting and provision of the rights towards the environment in the Pakistani constitution. Although the Constitution of Pakistan does not expressly offer any right to the environment, the judicial interpretation, especially through the Articles 9 and 14, has expanded the right to life and dignity to accommodate the environmental concerns. Case law case of Shehla Zia v. WAPDA have created a precedent that is used by the court in protecting the environment as part of constitutional protections, and this judicial activism is not without its limitations, in cases where no legislative and policy presence exists.This paper starts with an exploration of the history of the rights to the environment concept in the international law practice, relying on the 2022 resolution of the United Nations General Assembly on the right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment. It locates this trend within the tradition of globally oriented environmental constitutionalism as it reflects some novel patterns of the environmental protective measures’ effects concerning the courts and legislature efforts to incorporate those concerns into frameworks of primary rights. The paper then assesses the mechanisms provided by the constitution and law to implement the environmental rights, in Pakistan. It questions the low execution capacity of the environmental protection agencies especially following the 18th Amendment that decentralized the control of environment to the provincial control thus creating discrepancies in the law, monitoring and the execution.

Moreover, the study evaluates the international human rights and environmental responsibilities of Pakistan on treaties like the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), the Paris Agreement and so on. Although Pakistan is signatory to these frameworks, there are major discrepancies when it comes to integrating international rule of law with national laws resulting in lack of coordination between international pledges and national practice.The environmental degradation in Pakistan is also pointed out in the socio-economic aspect as brought out in the paper. The vulnerable communities are significantly affected by air and water pollution, inappropriate waste disposal, and climate change-related effects, and thus environmental justice is a critical aspect of human rights fulfillment. The paper ends with a series of recommendations including incorporation of the right to healthy environment to the constitution and enhancement of the public participation system and the implementation of the comparative jurisdictional best practices of functioning of the courts and legislation including South Africa and India.Overall, this paper contends that the transformative approach is needed where the establishment of protection of the environment is central to the constitutional order in Pakistan. Rights-based environmental framework is not only necessary to sustainably develop the world, but also a precondition to the dignity of man and the intergenerational equity amidst the manifesting ecological challenges.