Zwischen Industriegesellschaft und Anthropozän – Zur Entwicklung des Umweltverfassungsrechts in 75 Jahren Grundgesetz

Abstract

The evolution of environmental law over the 75 years since the birth of the German Federal Constitution (Basic Law) in 1949 has been shaped by profound changes in the domain of nature itself. From the 1950s onward, advanced industrial society has inflicted ever more damage upon the environment through the externalities of industrial-technical processes, the (over)‌use of natural resources, the degradation of landscapes, and non-sustainable consumption patterns. After 2000, the idea of the Anthropocene gained ever more attention. The deep ecological implications of this new geological epoch include the approach and transgression of planetary boundaries, e. g. through climate change and biodiversity loss, and the global duty to preserve ecological integrity. The Basic Law reacted to these profound changes to nature itself with the gradual establishment of a constitutional dimension of environmental law. In the early 1970s, an amendment of a federal legislative competence norm (then Article 74 No. 24 of the Basic Law) enabled the German federal legislature to establish the core statutes of modern German environmental law. Later in the decade, the German Federal Constitutional Court acknowledged the new legal significance of the environment. The Kalkar Decision (1978) recognized the duty of the state to protect the environment as a guarantee of the right to life and physical integrity according to Article 2, Section 2 of the Basic Law. The amendment of Article 20a of the Basic Law in 1994 provided for an explicit obligation of the state to protect the natural foundations of life, including in the interest of future generations. The landmark decision of the German Federal Constitutional Court of 24 March 2021 set out the constitutional task of the state to act against climate change, and to safeguard the intertemporal dimension of fundamental rights and of Article 20a of the Basic Law.