Right to a favourable environment Experience of selected European countries and proposals for future application in the Czech Republic

FINAL BOOK OF THE TRIPTYCH ON THE RIGHT TO A FAVOURABLE ENVIRONMENT

The first part of the book introduces results of a deep analysis of the constitutional anchorage, interpretation and previous application practice of the right to an environment in France, Belgium, Finland, Spain and Portugal. In each of the compared countries, it recognizes the method of the constitutional formulation of the right and its position in the constitutional laws of a particular country, as well as the issue of the nature of the right and its direct or indirect invokability, including the possible development of the interpretation of these issues in courts, and provides examples of specific cases (if available) handled based on the right to an environment.

The second part of the book summarizes the rather dismal state of the application of the right to a favourable environment established in Article 35 of the Czech Charter of Fundamental Rights and Freedoms and builds a possible model of its future assertion. The author finds the basis of this future model in the fact that the right to a favourable environment belongs in the Czech constitutional system among fundamental economic, social and cultural rights. For this reason, the author analyses the interpretation approaches developed for this group of rights by the Constitutional Court of the Czech Republic, examines the applicability of these approaches to the environmental sphere, which is specific in many respects, and arrives at designing a layout for interpreting the right to a favourable environment, made up of the definition of the essential core of the right, the typology of interventions in the right, and the application of a modified rationality test in the review of the right.