From Environmental Rights to Resilience Justice

Departing from the complex reality of cities and intending to address existing vulnerabilities from a legal perspective, this book aims to suggest the implementation of new legal frameworks which, through more adaptive mechanisms of law, can allow the realization of justice for socio-ecological resilience. Climate change is one of the biggest challenges for today’s Environmental Law. Within this reality, the rapid growth of urban spaces, where most of the world’s population lives, has resulted in the creation of more inequalities among social communities. The complexity of different social and ecological systems, growing environmental instability, and climate uncertainty urge for a need to find solutions to a more resilient future. In order to face this background, Public Law has now the opportunity to play a catalyst role in improving the environmental quality and life of urban communities. Nevertheless, environmental rights enshrined in most constitutions do not demonstrate to be sufficient for an effective protection of social-ecological systems and thus for the enhancement of their resilience.