L’ambiente «preso sul serio». Il percorso accidentato del costituzionalismo ambientale

In the last decades, environmental constitutionalism has gone through a constant expansion, resulting in a substantial increase of the number of democratic constitutions containing environmental principles and rights (covering now more than three quarters of worlds’ constitutions). This article is based on a comparative analysis, both from a diachronic and a synchronic perspective, about the evolution of environmental law in Europe and on a global scale. The development of environmental constitutionalism shows that in the first experiences (developed essentially in Europe) the protection of environment was limited to general, instrumental or merely declamatory provisions. On the contrary, the current trend of environmental constitutionalism (developed from the Nineties to the present day) illustrates a different approach, based on the centrality of environmental values in the constitutional structure, achieving what can be defined as an «environmental rights revolution».