Økologisk demokrati og naturens iboende verdi: Klimasøksmål i miljøkrisens tidsalder

Abstract

We are facing a planetary environmental and climate crisis, with severe, pervasive, long-lasting, and irreversible impacts for both humans and nature. This is due to political, legal, and economic systems having emerged during the last 250 years - especially liberal democracy and global capitalism - treat nature anthropocentrically, materialistically, and instrumentally. To better handle today's environmental and climate crisis, these outdated systems should be reformed in light of the idea of ecological democracy, hereunder green constitutionalism and nature's moral trump. Norway's first climate lawsuit illustrates the importance of such a systemic greening. This trial took place in 2017 and reappeared for the court in 2019, in which the state is accused for having broken the environmental paragraph (§ 112) in its own constitution. This lawsuit's greening implies a positive juridification, if the perception of nature in the Constitution's environmental paragraph is ecocentric (earth-centered) rather than anthropocentric (human-centered). Then, the climate lawsuit strengthens ecological co-citizens' constitutionally rule of law and democratic participation equality. Most importantly, it recognizes the planet's existential limits and nature's moral trump.