Should Environmental Rights be a Constitutional Right in Malaysia?

DOI

10.2991/978-94-6463-352-8_28How to use a DOI?

Keywords

Environmental Rights; Human Rights; Constitutional Rights

Abstract

In recent times, there has been international recognition of the fact that environmental rights are human rights. Despite being a State Party to many international conventions that proclaim environmental rights as human rights, Malaysia has yet to explicitly recognise this in any of her domestic legislation, much less the Federal Constitution. This article argues that given the inter-generational nature of environmental rights, there is immediate necessity for Malaysia to boldly and expressly proclaim environmental rights as a human right by including environmental rights as a fundamental liberty in the Federal Constitution. For the purpose of this research, a qualitative research method is adopted. The data collection method is document analysis consisting of both primary and secondary sources such as the Federal Constitution, international instruments, textbooks, journal articles, published law reports, and case law. The research found that the time is ripe for Malaysia to memorialise her international obligations by declaring environmental rights as a separate and distinct human right in the Federal Constitution. Environmental rights deserve to be enshrined and preserved for time immemorial in the supreme law of the land, because only then will there be longevity and continuity in the quest to conserve and preserve the environment not only for the foreseeable future, but for the future generations yet unborn that stand to inherit the Earth.

Copyright

© 2024 The Author(s)

Open Access

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

Download article (PDF)

TY  - CONF
AU  - Sheila Ramalingam
PY  - 2024
DA  - 2024/01/10
TI  - Should Environmental Rights be a Constitutional Right in Malaysia?
BT  - Proceedings of the 12th UUM International Legal Conference 2023 (UUMILC 2023)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 361
EP  - 373
SN  - 2667-128X
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-94-6463-352-8_28
DO  - 10.2991/978-94-6463-352-8_28
ID  - Ramalingam2024
ER  -