Die grundrechtlichen Umweltschutzpflichten des Staates

German
Environmental damage relevant to fundamental rights often emanates from private actors. To understand fundamental rights only as the citizen's rights of defence against the state would fall short in these cases. The state objective provision of Article 20a of the Basic Law is of limited use for legal protection due to its lack of subjective legal form. The fundamental rights in their effect as duties to protect therefore play a prominent role in environmental law. The environmental protection content of the Basic Law is examined from the ground up: The presentation covers the historical development of environmental protection duties in the case law of the BVerfG, their approaches to justification, their scope of protection, their preconditions and effects. Of particular interest for practitioners is the study of enforcement before specialised and constitutional courts vis-à-vis the legislature and the executive. In addition, the continuation of fundamental rights obligations to protect the environment through the BVerfG's climate decision is assessed and classified.

English
"Fundamental Rights as Obligation of the State to Environmental Protection": Today the concept of fundamental environmental duties is fully acknowledged in German law and gets more and more international attention. The study traces the development of environmental protection obligations in the case law of the German Constitutional Court, their grounds, their protective scope, their preconditions and effects. A separate chapter is devoted to the judicial enforcement of environmental protection obligations before specialised and constitutional courts.