The second republic : a green one

Abstract

This dissertation lies at the crossroads between several different areas of law. One path is the rapidly-evolving field of environmental law and another is the slowly-evolving field of constitutional law. These do not operate in a vacuum but are consistently influenced by developments in the field of human rights law at both the European Union law level and, just as importantly, at international law. Therefore, this dissertation discusses the Constitution as the supreme law of Malta and why, given such legal supremacy, it is advantageous to include something as important as the environment in it. The dissertation then proceeds to discuss the implications of such an inclusion, which all seem to revolve around human rights also present in the Constitution of Malta. The discussion later moves on to remedies that currently exist at the level of ordinary legislation and what would become of them if the environment were to be elevated to and granted the status of a human right. Reference is then made to the case law of the European Court of Human Rights which, together with the European Convention of Human Rights it is constituted by, can be said to be the greatest source of human rights law throughout modern Europe. With Malta’s firm European identity by way of its membership first in the Council of Europe and years later in the European Union, such a source of law has significantly affected the Laws of Malta and the court judgments handed down by its courts. Therefore, given all of this, there are several constitutional models that Malta could adopt including retaining the existing model, enact significant improvements to it, or replace it completely.