Have you ever heard the story of how a 10-year-old boy from a small village managed to bring about constitutional reform and spur environmental action?

I will try my best not to turn this article into some sort of legal opinion, even if I learned all about it in a human rights lecture, during which I happened to be surrounded by foreign law students who were already quite familiar with human rights in the context of environmental law.

Yet, being the only newly Maltese law graduate in the lecture theatre, I hadn’t the slightest idea how the two tied in together, a true and damning reflection of this country’s commitment to protect our environment.

The story took place in 1992 in a village in Costa Rica, where a young boy, Carlos Roberto Mejía Chacón, through sheer determination and his family’s help, lodged a constitutional application against his local government arguing against the authorities’ incompetence and indifference in failing to provide for a proper waste management system and for allowing locals to dump their garbage into a river that flowed through the same village.

The thrust of the young boy’s argument was that the local government violated his human right to life by allowing the river to be used as a garbage dump.

Surprisingly enough, not only did the courts order the clearing of the garbage dump but they further declared that, just like food, housing and education are recognised as human rights, a clean and healthy environment is the basis of human life and, therefore, should be afforded the same fundamental legal protection. This led to the adoption of this right in Costa Rica’s constitution and paved the way for its pro-environment policies and culture.

Today, there are over 110 countries that have amended their national constitutions and adopted this fundamental human right. In these countries, citizens have the right to hold to account the actions or inactions of the state and to take the state to court for environmental degradation.

It comes as no surprise that Malta is not one of these 110 countries. Our current constitution, which was adopted back in 1964, does not include such a right. To be fair, the environment is a late arrival to the sphere of human rights. In fact, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948 did not refer to the environment or nature at all.

However as John Knox, an independent expert in the field, rightly puts it: were the Universal Declaration to be drafted today, it is easy to imagine that it would include a right recognised in so many national constitutions and regional agreements.

Suppose, for a moment, Malta had this collective human right enshrined in its constitution.

Let’s all raise our collective voices so that this right is enshrined in our constitution so that our environment will finally get the protection it deserves- Darren Carabott

Now let’s apply this legal notion to this environmental massacre we are witnessing of late, where every patch of soil is being ‘developed’ into tarmac, where trees are being chopped down by the dozen and air pollution is causing health complications. Even the island of Comino recently discovered the cold embrace of excavators and where this government’s idea of an open space is limited to car parks.

Wouldn’t this government’s indifference to our environmental degradation amount to a violation of every Maltese citizen’s right to a sustainable and healthy environment? Wouldn’t it be just for every Maltese citizen to have the right to take the government to court over violations affecting the surroundings or conditions in which we live in? I believe it would.

As we learn how other countries addressed their environmental issues, one can immediately realise that this legal protection might be Malta’s next big step in our ongoing conservational struggle.

Portugal was the first country to adopt such a concept in its national constitution by stating that all citizens have the right to a healthy and ecologically balanced human environment and the duty to protect it.

Ecuador’s constitution went even further and recognised nature – Pachamama – as a subject possessing rights of its own and that it has the right to integral respect for its existence and for the maintenance and regeneration of its life cycles, structure, functions and evolutionary processes.

This right was recognised even on a continental level, such as in the African Charter where it is stated that all peoples shall have the right to a general satisfactory environment favourable to their development and as in the Additional Protocol to the American Convention on Human Rights where everyone shall have the right to live in a healthy environment. The question begs: what do these countries have that Malta doesn’t?

The argument in favour of recognising the right to a sustainable and healthy environment as a human right can be explained in three easy steps: firstly, that the environmental degradation can result in the violation of human rights; secondly, that human rights can lead to better environmental protection; and therefore, lastly, human rights and environmental rights are interrelated and are reciprocally dependent.

So, just like that one boy from a small village who dreamt big and managed to cast into stone the right for his village and the rest of the country to live in a sustainable and healthy environment, we Maltese can also make a difference for our country. It is high time for legal reform and political action. Let’s all raise our collective voices so that this right is enshrined in our constitution so that our environment will finally get the protection it deserves.

Darren Carabott, lawyer and PN electoral candidate