HUMAN RIGHTS, ENVIRONMENT AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT: A CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF ENVIRONMENTAL LAWS IN INDIA

Consideration of environmental protection as a human right is among the most significant changes in modern constitutional and international law. In the last 50 years, environmental degradation has been more and more interpreted as the direct challenge to life, dignity, equality and intergenerational justice, as well as the ecological crisis. Judicial interpretation has played the biggest role in effecting this transformation in India, instead of a shortcut through a constitutional amendment that is done textually. The expansive interpretation of the clause of Article 21 of the Constitution of India by the Supreme Court has incorporated the protection of the environment in the right to life and liberty of the individual. At the same time, international environmental instruments that started with the Stockholm declaration, followed by Rio declaration on environment and development and the final one, the Paris agreement have affected the environment governance system in India. In spite of this normative change, lack of implementation, fragility of institutions, extractive development policy, and a lack of climate governance still hampered environmental justice in India. This pap er is a critical analysis of the connection of human rights, sustainable development and the environmental law in the Indian constitutional framework. The article utilizes a case study of the mining operation in the Bailadila Range through the analysis of the doctrines, statutory analysis and a case study to argue that the environmental constitutionalism in India is normative yet structurally weak. India must undertake institutional reform, participatory environmental democracy and rights based climate law instead of judicial activism to achieve sustainable development.